


It Had To Be You

by imitateslife



Series: A Life and Death Kind of Love [1]
Category: Wooden Overcoats (Podcast)
Genre: AU, Antigone and Edgeware both deserve a night out. And a nap., Background Chapyard, Backstory, Childhood Crushes to Soulmates, F/M, Friendly reminder that Esther is a parrot, Liberal use of flashbacks, Podfic Welcome, Rare Pairings, Romance, Second Chances, Slow Burn for impatient readers, rom com
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 08:07:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 40,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25930099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imitateslife/pseuds/imitateslife
Summary: When Dr. Henry Edgeware returned to Piffling Vale he never expected to become the village's only doctor or that he would one day run two hospitals alone. He certainly never expected to find love.Antigone Funn has always hoped that love would find her - just as it always did in the stories she loved. But she certainly never saw herself as the heroine sort.However, after numerous missed chances, Henry and Antigone find themselves drawn to each other by fate, destiny, or the failed machinations of Eric Chapman. And when Henry's job as Piffling's only doctor threatens their burgeoning relationship, Antigone concocts a plan that may ensure they can have the happily-ever-after they both so desperately deserve.
Relationships: Dr. Henry Edgware/Antigone Funn, Eric Chapman/Rudyard Funn
Series: A Life and Death Kind of Love [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2003872
Comments: 69
Kudos: 31





	1. Past: The Funeral of Mrs. Edgeware

The funeral of Elizabeth Edgeware was not a grand affair, even though the turn out was somewhat spectacular by Piffling standards. The village’s librarian had been a beloved figure. When her husband died thirty-some-odd years ago in a freak cycling accident, Elizabeth had been left to raise a precocious son and run the Piffling Vale Library alone and had done so with an admirable stiff upper lip, while installing herself as a motherly figure to any and all voracious readers and inquiring minds on Piffling. Many came to pay their respects to the late Mrs. Edgeware; others came to offer their condolences to her son. Henry Edgeware had been, in his youth, a studious boy, destined for great things. He had been the first in a long while to leave Piffling for his higher education and in the years he had been away, he’d grown into his sharp nose and his other, angular features that had, in childhood, been deemed “gangly” seemed to suit him. Not all who offered their condolences did so in earnest. Rumor had it that Henry, who had gotten a first in medicine on the mainland, was back to stay on Piffling to assist the aging Dr. Ridley. Had he really been away from Piffling long enough to earn his medical license? Time certainly flew by. 

For his part, Dr. Henry Edgeware remained very quiet and withdrawn during the ceremony. He’d forgotten what it was like to attend a Funn Funeral in his time away and now, listening to Reverend Wavering quote famous literary figures on God and watching Rudyard Funn check his watch in an irascible way that Henry recalled him doing whenever he was the first to finish an exam in class and he wanted everyone else to get on with it, Henry wished he’d saved a little more for his mother’s funeral and buried her off the island of Piffling. Though she certainly had never been anywhere else nor had ever expressed a desire to go elsewhere, Henry felt sure that she would be as confused as he was to hear C.S. Lewis and Oscar Wilde cited in the same eulogy. He took no comfort in words of great writers who had not lost their mothers and who had not, in an incredible lack of foresight, assumed there would always be more time. Funerals were times to regret and Henry regretted two things. First, he regretted thinking that his mother had more time left in this world so that he could excuse his rare visits in the last few years. Second, he regretted thinking that his mother had more time left in this world and so a parrot would be a worthy companion for her in his absence. At home, the bloody bird, a macaw of some sort, Esther, waited, and she would not understand that, as per his mother’s will, she and the house and everything else in it now belonged to him, a practical stranger, who was about to be far too busy as one of Piffling’s only two doctors to dote on a bloody bird. 

As the service drew to a close and mourners were invited to speak and view the corpse, Henry said a few words about his mother’s passion for learning and devoted care as his mother, the same sort of maudlin stuff you’d expect at any funeral, before taking a good look at the body. Henry had been his mother’s attending physician upon her deathbed. A strange and uncomfortable position for anyone, but especially as Henry watched a woman he scarcely recognized need assistance for things she’d always been so fiercely independent about when he last saw her. In her final days, Henry hadn’t recognized his mother. Now, standing before her open casket, seeing her laid out in her favorite green dress and the pearls his grandmother had gifted her as a wedding present, Henry recognized his mother. Her graying-brown hair was drawn back neatly, as she had always done in life. The color of her skin no longer appeared sickly and some color had been rubbed back into her cheeks. Even her lipstick and nail polish were exactly the colors she would have chosen for herself in the fastidious way she chose everything. Tears filled his eyes and as Henry bent to kiss her farewell, he caught a whiff of ink and paper and coffee and that vanilla-spice perfume of hers that reminded him of Christmas. He bid her a quiet, teary goodbye before joining his place with the other pallbearers. Shoulder-to-shoulder with Rudyard Funn at the lead and followed up by her successor at the library and Piffling School’s longest-serving English teacher who had played bridge with Elizabeth in life, Henry bore his mother to her final resting place and helped to pour dirt over the casket. When the mourners dispersed, a few grumbling that the library ought to auction off the books instead of appointing a replacement, Henry grabbed Rudyard by the shoulder.

“Now, look here,” Rudyard snapped, “it was a good, clean funeral. I’m afraid you have no grounds for a refund, Mr. Edgeware.”

“Doctor Edgeware.”

“My point still stands.”

“I don’t want a refund,” Henry said. “I want to thank you.”

“All in a day’s work _Doctor_ Edgeware. We get the body in the coffin in the ground on time,” Rudyard said. “I’m just pleased there wasn’t any violent brawling over the vicar’s passages. Some of them were a bit risky, I think…”

“No, not about the service,” Henry said. “Though, yes, thank you for that, too. I meant for the preservation of the body. You did an excellent job, making her look - and even _smell_ \- like she did in life instead of…”

“Oh, that will be Antigone’s doing,” Rudyard said. “I won’t pass along your compliments, though. She has quite the complex about bespoke embalming fluids.”

“Antigone?” Henry’s mouth dropped open. “You mean… your sister’s still alive? Since I’ve been back, anyone who’s ever mentioned her has said she passed ages ago.”

“Well, I don’t exactly advertise that she’s alive,” Rudyard said. “People will believe what they want to anyway. You should know. You used to live here.”

“I live here now,” Henry said. “NHS has assigned-”

“I’ll see you around, _doctor_ ,” Rudyard said as if they hadn’t known each other for most of their lives. “I have to be at a will reading in half an hour. Death waits for no man.”

Henry watched his former classmate leave the graveyard and resolved to write a letter to Antigone Funn, thanking her for her dedicated and thoughtful work on his mother’s funeral.

If he had known that Dr. Ridley would drop dead of a heart attack before suppertime and leave him as Piffling Vale’s only doctor, maybe he would have written that letter sooner. It was, hopefully, the last time Dr. Henry Edgeware would make the mistake of believing that there was always more time. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This ship began as an off-handed comment to my best friend during a Zoom chat, where, based on Dr. Edgeware's poetic speech in the "Piffling Lives" episode "The Casebook of Dr. Edgeware", I realized that if this man got some sleep and perspective, he'd be a great match for Antigone.
> 
> If you're wondering, this fic will be separate from my "Dadyard AU". I am still hard at work on "Catch and Release", but I got this one outlined as well and it provides a nice change of pace.


	2. Present: No Tall, Dark Stranger

The winebar was cool and cramped and easily the most dimly lit place in Chapman’s. Sultry jazz music played over unseen speakers as Antigone Funn slunk into the place. If she had come on a Friday or Saturday night, she was sure the bar would be buzzing with patrons, but, as it was, on Saturday she had the Booker funeral and she’d need Friday night to mentally prepare for what would inevitably be a disastrous ceremony and all of Saturday night to recover from whatever disaster Rudyard caused at the afternoon service. Thursday was  _ usually _ her cinema night. However, two things had happened this week that had radically altered her plans. Firstly, this Thursday,  _ today _ , was Mr. Crumbles’ birthday and Herbert Cough was celebrating his beloved donkey by taking him to Alderney. Secondly, and more importantly, Antigone had been reading a new book series full of some of the most passionate, lurid, exciting prose that she had read since Veronica Knight’s last post-humous novel was published. Daphne Harding wrote novels set in unfamiliar, metropolitan locales were rife with nighttime encounters in airless bars, where the patrons spoke French and the heroine needed only to lean sexily against the bar to be approached by a tall, dark, handsome stranger, with whom she would banter with cleverly for a few pages, each double entendre dripping with lust, until neither of them could contain their desire and they would leave the bar together for a night of filthy lovemaking and a tender morning after that usually led to more filthy lovemaking until, after the cycle repeated so many times, the heroine and her lover lived, as Antigone liked to think, saucily ever-after. If French cinema night was canceled, tonight was Antigone’s night to play the heroine. After all, she wasn’t going to give up her night off just because Herbert and his chocolate-loving ass were out of town. 

However, the thing about playing the heroine was that Antigone had to act sultry and nonchalant, leaning against the bar with a sophisticated drink. She had to look and feel desirable and utterly sexy. And mostly she felt overwhelmed by Chapman’s sprawling wine list. There were scant few other patrons in the bar, anyway, and even fewer of them were alone. Most came with a partner or small group and most sat in the dim booths or cafe tables lit by tea lights. How was Antigone going to get noticed by a handsome stranger if there were none to be found?

“Bloody typical,” she muttered to herself, running a hand through her dark hair. "How am I supposed to be swept off my feet by a tall, dark stranger if there aren't any tall, dark strangers to do the sweeping?"

Meanwhile, across the bar, the only other lone person sat in a suitably dark booth, pouring an energy drink into his vodka tonic as surreptitiously as he could. Dr. Henry Edgeware would not be in Chapman's wine bar normally. As Piffling's only doctor, he was far too busy for a night off, and even if he could have a glorious hour or two to himself, it was usually better that he didn’t indulge in alcohol. He never knew when he could be called in to perform a surgery or fill out a death certificate or deliver a baby… Actually, Henry couldn’t remember the last time he’d delivered a baby. Most of what he did on Piffling revolved around care for the gravely ill, gravely injured or dying. No one in this village ever had happy news: just broken limbs and heads that got chopped off by ceiling fans and… Henry drank deeply from his glass and alcohol and caffeine battled in his exhausted body. He squeezed his eyes shut tight. The only reason he was here tonight was that Eric Chapman had set him up on a blind date. Eric was a vaguely friend-shaped figure in Henry’s life. He had a reassuring smile and an aura that eased Henry’s frayed nerves. And he had the power to close Chapman Community Hospital until midafternoon tomorrow, which meant that Henry would have half his usual case-load for a few, blissful hours on the condition that he make an appearance at Chapman’s wine bar and go on a date with local cafe proprietor and cliff-diver, Harriet Marriot. There was just one snag in the whole thing:

Hell would freeze over before Harriet came to Chapman’s wine bar tonight.

It had all started this morning when she arrived at St. Spratt’s for her annual physical and insisted, in a fake, thick French accent that her name was Heloise Manet and that she was new to the village. 

“Harriet, I’ve known you for over thirty years,” Henry said pinching the bridge of his nose. “And we’ve been going over this for the last three. Every time you change the theme of your cafe, you don’t need to change your name and ethnicity.”

“I do not know who zis ‘arriet is,” she said in a nasally, fake accent that made Henry cringe. “My name is Heloise and I need a doctor who is willing to put zat in writing.”

“Harriet. I promise I won’t tell anyone in the village that you’re still you.” Henry looked up at her. “But for the ease of my filing, I need to have a consistent name for all of your files. Even a consistent surname, if you insist on changing your first-”

They argued like this for five minutes, voices raising and Henry feeling more and more exhausted by the second. 

“Look,” Harriet finally said, dropping the accent and crossing her arms, “I will write to Mayor Desmond and tell him that you are not respecting my identity expression.”

“You might as well mail that letter to the moon,” Henry said waspishly. “Mayor Desmond doesn’t always read everything he’s been given. He claims he’s usually kept very busy. Not as busy as running two hospitals, but busy all the same…”

“If you can’t update your files every time I rebrand, I’m going to have to find a new doctor,” Harriet said.

“Good luck. They’re in short supply on Piffling.”

Harriet stormed out shortly after and Henry took a three-and-a-half-minute nap while leaning against the handwashing station. When Eric Chapman came to collect the body of an eighty-two-year-old patient who had died in the usual way of geriatric patients on Piffling - an extreme sporting accident - he’d been extra chipper and perhaps a little coy.

“If you have a secret,” Henry said as he signed the death certificate to hand over to Eric, “you better go ahead and tell me. I’d play your guessing game, but I’m too tired for guessing games today. It’s been a trying morning…”

“Sure thing,” Eric said. “Do you know what you need, Henry?”

“A nap and two other doctors?” 

“A girlfriend. Met this lovely girl-” 

“Congratulations,” Henry said, writing the date on the certificate. 

“Oh. Oh no. I didn’t mean for me. Great girl, new to the island from Avignon, I think. Lovely place, Avignon. Have you ever been?” 

“I haven’t been off this island in three years.”

“Right. Well, I’ve arranged a little date for the two of you tonight at Chapman’s wine bar.”

“Eric, I don’t have time to date,” Henry said. “I have two hospitals to run and the last time I left you in charge of any of it, you had a complete mental breakdown…”

“I know,” Eric said. “But, I do think you’d like her. She’s French, cultured, runs her own business…”

“What business?”

“Cliffside Creperie. It’s a new place-”

“Eric, that’s just Harriet Marriot with a French accent,” Henry said. He set down his pen. 

“Who?”

“Hettie Mayo, who used to run the Cliffside Cafe, back when she was Australian..”

“No, you’re confused,” Eric said. “Hettie Mayo immigrated to America after the cyborg mouse infestation. Heloise Manet is a lovely French ex-pat from Avignon…”

There would be no winning this argument. Eric Chapman was a smart man and well-loved, but he wasn’t a local. He didn’t know that the proprietor of whatever the cafe on the cliffs was called, she was a serial liar, who reconstructed her identity every time business went belly-up. She’d been doing it for years and if she had seemed keen on Henry when Eric spoke to her, it must have been before her appointment today. Sighing, Henry could only think of one thing: leverage. Harriet or Heloise or Hettie or whatever she was calling herself these days wouldn’t dare show up unless it was to yell at him, but Henry could pretend to make an effort and, when stood up, go home for the nap he truly craved. He might even push his luck and hope for a full night’s rest. 

“If I go on this date,” he said, “will you keep Chapman Community Hospital closed until 10 AM tomorrow?” 

Eric blinked. Then a broad smile overtook his features. Clapping Henry on the shoulder, he took the death certificate.

“Blimey. Someone certainly is confident. Good on you!” Eric put the certificate in a folder. “I’ll even keep it closed until one, just in case you decide to do a late breakfast.”

And that was how Dr. Henry Edgeware had his first night off in recent memory. However, now that he was in Chapman’s wine bar, he felt foolish. He’d have a drink or two and go home to Esther and tell her all about the bliss of drinking alone and then slowly descend into a panic that Harriet hadn’t shown up after all and he’d begin to ask Esther the sort of existential questions he reserved for her alone: Am I loveable? Will I die alone and underappreciated on this godforsaken island? Should I at least make a small attempt at dating, even if it isn’t with Harriet?

And Esther would give her sage, exasperated advice - or perhaps her plea - as she looked at him with her beady eyes from her perch: “Every now and again, Henry. Just every now and again.”

He would feel guilty that he couldn’t take that advice, of course. Who would he date? He knew everyone on Piffling a little too intimately and everyone on the island knew him. Most had forgotten the handsome and brilliant young man he’d been - the first to go to university off the island in twenty years - who had jet-setted to farthest London and hoped never to look back, but who, when his mother had gotten sick, took an NHS assignment in his childhood community. The mystique of being a handsome, young doctor only lasted a few months, if that, as everyone dismissed him as being “just Henry” or “that Edgeware fellow”. No one on the island except his mother shared his enthusiasm for literature and he hadn’t had time to read a book since her passing anyway. The women on Piffling craved physical passion - the sort of athletic displays of affection that Henry hadn’t the energy for anymore - but not a meeting of the minds. The men were just as bad, of course. It was the island as he remembered it in his youth, only worse, now that he was kept busy with two hospitals and a never-ending list of patients that made him think Piffling Vale had doubled in size since he’d gone off to university. Who would he date? Piffling lacked an abundance of promising candidates and Henry knew in a resigned way that he was no catch. Between his long hours, chronic exhaustion, and greying-brown hair and sleepless eyes, he just wasn’t the stuff of romance novels. He was, like everyone said, only Doctor Edgeware - nothing special. He suspected that the only reason Harriet had seemed “keen” on him this morning was to see if Eric could bias him in her favor when she made her ridiculous request for the fifth time since Henry had moved back to Piffling Vale. It’d be different, he supposed, if she had legally changed her name with the mayor’s office or if she had been medically transitioning, but usually, she was just trying to commit some kind of tax evasion or circumvent village ordinances that prevented someone with more than three strikes against them from having a food and beverage license. He needed to forget about Harriet. 

He needed another drink. 

Somehow, he’d emptied his vodka tonic and the caffeine had given him a second wind. Since Eric was paying for his drinks tonight, Henry saw no reason not to get a second. He carried his empty glass to the bar to return to Sebastien and while he waited, he brushed elbows with the only other person seated at the bar.

Antigone startled at the touch. Flinching, she whirled around to snap at whoever dared make an unasked-for pass at her - even though she very desperately wanted to have a pass made at her - when, instead of a handsy drunk, she saw Doctor Edgware, looking surprised to see her. People were always surprised to see her. Antigone didn’t mean to sneak up on them. She felt a little guilty, suddenly, looking at Doctor Edgeware and thinking that if she startled him too much, she might send him into cardiac arrest. It would be a shame to kill off Piffling’s only doctor. Chapman would probably get the funeral, which was also a shame because even though he and Edgeware were friends, back when the good doctor had been “just Henry”, a boy the year above her at school, Antigone had always found him to be kind and smart; she could probably do a better, bespoke funeral for him than Eric Chapman, not that she wanted to at all. As apologies tumbled out of her mouth, Doctor Edgware apologized, too. 

“I’m sorry, Miss Funn,” he said. “I wasn’t paying attention. It’s been a long day.”

“Yes, I imagine so. Your days are always very long,” she said. “I’m sorry. I was… I was just trying to lean against the bar properly.”

“Properly?”

Doctor Edgeware looked at her, cocking his head to the side and appraising her. Antigone wasn’t used to being looked at, much less seen, and she felt silly, standing there in her black dress and wearing a bit of red on her lips and cheeks from her mortuary makeup kit. She must have looked clownish in a way that was not a compliment and her cheeks flushed a deeper shade of crimson.

“I’m… waiting for someone,” she confessed. Was it a confession if it was also a half-truth?

Dr. Edgeware’s eyes snapped wide open. 

“Did Eric put you up to this?” 

“Chapman?” Antigone shook her head. “Put me up to what?”

“He was supposed to set me up on a blind date.”

“Oh! I see!” Antigone said. “That sounds nice.”

She had never been on a blind date, but the prospect of one thrilled her. She’d never been on a date at all, actually, not unless one counted Seymour Profitte taking her to the yacht club last year, and, depending on her mood, Antigone only sometimes counted it. Any date beside one with that slime of a man sounded nice.

“It isn’t. She stood me up,” Doctor Edgeware said. A small smile tipped his lips up. Antigone couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen him smile. It must have been before he left the island for medical school. “Who are you waiting for?”

“Oh… Um…” If Antigone could have blushed more, she would have. Her fingers clawed at her hair and she considered telling Doctor Edgeware to mind his own business and to shut up. Instead, she drew a deep breath and said, rather bravely, if quickly, “I’m waiting for a tall, dark stranger to be drawn in by my feminine mystique and buy me a drink.”

Doctor Edgware didn’t laugh; his smile also never left his face.

“That sounds nice.”

“No, not really,” said Antigone. “No one has shown up and my spine hurts from trying to stand seductively against this bar for fifteen minutes.”

“I always have worried about your posture,” Doctor Edgeware said. “Try standing straight. It might relieve some of the tension in your shoulders.”

“You mean… like this?” Antigone shifted until standing erect. Doctor Edgeware nodded. “Oh, that is better. But, it isn’t very sexy, is it?”

Doctor Edgeware shrugged. 

“But it is relieving the tension in your back and neck?"

“Yes, thank you,” she said. “But what man is going to notice me just because I’m standing up straight?”

“Well, I may not be a tall, dark stranger,” Doctor Edgeware said, “but if you’d been standing like that at the bar, I would have noticed you immediately.”

“But then we might not have brushed elbows,” Antigone said. “You might not have talked to me.”

“Maybe not,” Doctor Edgeware said, “but we are talking now. It’s nice.”

“Is it?” Antigone paused. “I mean, it is. I just wasn’t sure if you were being polite…”

Edgeware laughed weakly.

“I don’t have time to be polite anymore, Miss Funn,” he said. “It really is nice to see you.”

Antigone didn’t know what to say. He palms sweated and she supposed that if a tall, dark stranger didn’t turn up, it wasn’t so bad to be making small talk with Doctor Edgeware. It was a start - baby steps.

“You know,” Doctor Edgeware said, “Eric is paying for my tab. Could I buy you a drink?” 

“Wouldn’t that mean Chapman was buying the drinks?” 

“You can just say no.” 

“No! I mean,  _ yes _ .” Antigone cursed a blue streak in her mind. “I mean, that’d be lovely. Thank you.”

“What are you drinking?” Doctor Edgeware asked. 

“I… I don’t know,” Antigone said. “I don’t go out for drinks and I wouldn’t know what to order.”

“Let’s order a bottle of wine,” Doctor Edgeware said. “I hear Eric keeps a fine selection of  _ Châteauneuf-du-Pape Rouge _ .”

“You speak French?” Antigone’s eyebrows rose.

Doctor Edgeware shrugged. 

“Not well. I had to take a foreign language at university,” he said. “Why?”

“No reason!” Antigone said. “A red wine is fine!”

“We can even get some appetizers,” Doctor Edgeware said. “Make a night of it, since neither of us is meeting up with who we’re waiting for.”

So they returned to the booth with a bottle of red wine, an array of appetizers, and a decision to be on a first-name basis, at least for the evening. It felt much too clinical to call him "Doctor Edgeware". When she said so, Doctor Edgeware smiled, tilting his head to the side. He examined his wine glass. 

“Considering we used to be in school together and you aren’t on my examining table,” he said, “maybe you could try to call my ‘Henry’.”

“Yes, I suppose I could try that.” Antigone paused. “Would you still call me ‘Miss Funn’ or will ‘Antigone’ do for the night?”

“Would you rather I call you ‘Miss Funn’ or ‘Antigone’?”

Antigone didn’t know. She stared into her wine glass and studied the shadowy reflection that gazed back up at her. She set the wine aside and spread a napkin across her lap. Smoothing her hands over it, she mumbled something and blushed again. 

“What’s that?”

“Nothing, no, shut up!” Antigone said, snapping her gaze up. “I didn’t say anything.”

“Miss Funn, if it’s too personal to call you ‘Antigone’...”

“I didn’t say that!” She sighed. “It’s just… “Miss Funn” sounds like something out of a… out of a nineteenth-century novel.” 

“Bronte or an Austen?” Henry asked. 

He sounded amused and sincere and Antigone bit her lip, nodding. Of course, the librarian’s son would understand. Everyone else seemed to have forgotten Elizabeth Edgeware’s funeral three years ago. Antigone remembered it well. It was one of the last funerals she’d done until foraying from her mortuary of someone she had known in life. Swallowing, she reached for her wine glass. 

“Yes, exactly.”

“Which are you, Miss Funn?”

Antigone took a pensive sip of the full-bodied wine. She hadn’t expected it to be bittersweet - only one or the other. Now that she tasted it and the harmony of flavors played across her taste buds, she wondered what other things she’d only thought were bitter had a sweetness and what sweet things had a bitterness she’d overlooked. For a moment, she considered commenting on it, even a ‘this wine is lovely’, to avoid answering such a probing question. To tell a man whether she was a Bronte or an Austen was a way to bare her soul. Books, in Antigone’s opinion, reflected the deepest self. Once, she’d liked Henry Edgeware well enough for that, but in the last seventeen years, they had had so little contact… Really, it was only in the last year that Antigone dealt with him. Until life had drawn her back out into the world, she’d been content to spend her days and nights counted among the dead in her mortuary. Now, even though she wouldn’t entirely forsake the enterprise of living life, she longed to crawl across the square and slink into her mortuary before Rudyard noticed she had been gone and rinse her mouth out with water and hypoallergenic toothpaste so that no one could scent alcohol on her breath. 

“This was a mistake,” she said. “Henry… Doctor Edgeware… I’m sorry… I came out tonight to live some delusional fantasy and you… well, I’m sorry your date stood you up. You certainly deserve better than that.”

Antigone placed her napkin on the table, but Henry waved a hand. 

“Don’t be sorry. It’s been nice to sit with you,” he said. “Sometimes, I think you’re the only person on this island taken more for granted than I am. I was glad to run into you.”

Antigone stopped trying to hide in what scant shadows she could find in Chapman’s wine bar. 

“You were… glad?” she asked. “To see  _ me _ ? Why?”

“‘Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love,’” Henry said. “Wouldn’t you agree?”

“ _ Northanger Abbey? _ ” Antigone gasped. “That’s Austen’s second-best work!”

Henry laughed. 

“I thought you might have liked it,” he said. “Most people probably take you for a Bronte fan…” 

“Oh, I am,” said Antigone. “The writing is dramatic and Gothic and lush… but it’s not a romance.”

“You always did like romance novels.”

“What of it? Literature is literature. I would think your mother had taught you better than to judge-”

“I don’t have the energy to judge anyone anymore,” Henry said. “Besides, there’s nothing wrong with romance. I just… I remembered you reading in the nook at the library when we were kids. You didn’t usually check anything out-”

“Father didn’t want me to bring romance novels home,” she said. “He always said it would give me  _ unrealistic ideas. _ ”

“Hmm.” Henry took a drink from his glass. “I would think that if any romance writer is going to give you  _ realistic _ ideas, it’d be Austen.”

“Yes, she really was a genius on the human condition,” Antigone said. “Perhaps not so melodramatic as Bronte, but there’s a place for both sorts of literature on my bookshelf. After all, you wouldn’t prescribe antibiotics to your patients with a broken leg… different treatments for different ailments.”

“I regret to inform you that I have prescribed antibiotics to patients with broken legs many times,” Henry said, a little sadly. “Sometimes infection has already set in and sometimes…”

He hid behind his wine glass and Antigone wondered how tired he must have been to accidentally prescribe antibiotics for pain. 

“... but your point stands,” he agreed. “Books are the remedy to whatever might ail a soul.” 

“When was the last time you read a book, Henry?” 

“I scarcely have time to read the back of a cereal box. I run two hospitals.” 

“You can’t go around giving prescriptions to people that you wouldn’t follow yourself! That’s basically malpractice!”

“Is it?” Henry looked vaguely alarmed. “I suppose if they revoke my medical license, the hospitals will be someone else’s problem…”

“That was a joke,” Antigone said quickly. “Sorry. I’m new at jokes.” 

Henry relaxed. 

“If you give me a heart attack, Miss Funn, there will be no one to resuscitate me,” he quipped.

“Don’t worry. We’d give you a wonderful funeral where we read passages from all your favorite cereal boxes,” she teased. “Or, maybe Chapman would. I don’t know it you pre-booked-”

“Miss Funn-”

“Antigone, please.”

“Antigone,” Henry said her name as if its syllables gave him warmth and delight. “You don’t need to try so hard to make a joke. You’re too clever to have to over-explain your humor.”

“I- oh- Thank you.” she folded her hands on the table in front of her. “Henry.”

To Antigone’s surprise, the silence that settled over them wrapped around them like a comfortable blanket instead of like an impenetrable fog. Maybe it was the wine that made her feel a little sleepy and relaxed. She wasn’t much of a drinker. Somehow, though, she thought it was the familiar surprise of spending a few moments in Henry Edgeware’s company. There had been a time twenty years ago or so that she’d rather fancied him. However, Henry had always had his sights set on a life outside of Piffling Vale and Antigone hadn’t dared to dream of doing anything but working in her parents’ mortuary until well after it had become her life’s sole purpose and she longed for something  _ more _ . Just as she quested out into the world and dreamt of making a life elsewhere, though she knew she probably  _ wouldn’t _ , Henry Edgeware returned to Piffling and it only took a few weeks to lock dreams of the sandy-haired and brilliant boy who helped his mother in the library and worked as a lab assistant to their biology teacher in the attic of Antigone’s memory and think only of him as the exhausted, harried doctor everyone knew. Even when he’d first come back for his mother’s funeral, she had locked away her childhood crush because, surely, Henry Edgeware wouldn’t stick around and when he  _ had _ , it hadn’t been the same. 

It was all a vicious cycle, broken now by an evening of ‘despised love’. Perhaps they could be friends-

“It’s actually not time that I’m strapped for,” he said mournfully. “It’s rest. I’m busy running both hospitals, but the truth is that I don’t sleep anymore. Maybe if I could sleep, instead of staying up worrying that the telephone will ring, I’d feel refreshed enough to read a book.”

“Maybe you could read yourself to sleep?” Antigone suggested. “Since you like Austen so much, I might recommend  _ Persuasion _ . It’s my personal favorite and just a sentence or two usually puts my brother to sleep.” 

“ _ Persuasion _ ?” Henry asked. “I never finished Austen’s complete works, which one is that.”

“A woman rejects a sailor in their youth,” Antigone said, “but when he comes back a rich sea captain and she hasn’t married, they’re granted a second chance at love.” 

“And reading it puts your brother to sleep?”

“Almost every time,” Antigone said bitterly. “He has no taste.”

“Of course not,” Henry said. “Do you think we could use it as a preventative measure? To keep him from causing more accidents on the island?”

Antigone laughed inelegantly. Georgie had once described the piercing sound that passed for Antigone Funn’s laugh as “a dolphin”. Immediately after laughing, she froze and tried to recall Georgie’s advice from those days and laughed a fake, gentle laugh. Henry shook his head. 

“ _ Persuasion _ ,” he repeated. “At worst I’ll have read a book and gotten no sleep, which I suppose is better than not having read a book and still getting no sleep.”

“Do let me know how you like it,” Antigone said. “If we get the chance to speak again, that is.”

“You could always come and pick up the next patient that passes away,” Henry said. “I’d rather see you in my morgue than your brother… You know what I mean.”

“I do,” she said. “I’ve always wanted to see your morgue. I imagine it’s beautiful…”

“I haven’t noticed,” admitted Henry. “You’ll have to come by and let me know.”

“I’d like that.”

“Antigone-”

Sebastien approached the table. 

“Doctor Edgeware?” he said, his authentic French accent rolling gently into the conversation. “There is a telephone call for you from St. Spratt’s. Mrs. Kingfisher has gone into labor.”

Henry groaned. 

“Tell her to count the seconds between her contractions and I’ll be there soon,” he said. The excitement and softness with which he had spoken to Antigone faded into his usual, frayed tone. Sebastien left the table. Antigone looked down. 

“I suppose you have to go,” she said. Then, looking at their mostly-finished bottle of wine, she asked, “Should you be delivering a baby after drinking?”

“The state I’m in, I shouldn’t be delivering babies at all,” Henry said. “But until we have more doctors…”

“Will you be all right, Henry?”

“Are any of us truly all right?” he asked. “Thank you for your concern, Antigone.”

She almost said something else, but before she could, Henry lifted his almost-empty wine glass and toasted her. He smiled at her and for a moment, he didn’t look like the frayed and exhausted doctor she knew he’d be in a moment. He looked as full of promise as she remembered him in their younger days and he looked at her with something in his eyes that made her insides tingle. If he looked like this more often, no one would have ever stood him up for a blind date. And if he looked at Antigone like this more often, maybe she would have been the one visiting the morgue from the beginning. 

“To second chances,” he said, “and your good health, Antigone.”

He drained his glass and then turned to leave Chapman’s wine bar. When Antigone left a few moments later, she wasn’t sure if she was more drunk off French wine or the curious feeling those words gave her:  _ second chances _ . 


	3. Past: Library Books in the Rain

The Piffling Vale Public Library was one of the oldest buildings on the island of Piffling. Every generation saw it cared for by a figure, clad in tweed or houndstooth or floral print, with too many broaches or plastic necklaces, who saw herself as the last bastion of literacy and the sole protectress of the public’s welfare. Elizabeth Edgeware was just one in a long line of librarians. Unlike her predecessor - a woman Antigone could barely remember - she did not often “shush” children and she was willing to forgive late fees if you seemed sorry enough. Mrs. Edgeware was, perhaps, Antigone’s favorite adult on the island. Sure, the reverend’s liberal views rubbing her father like sandpaper made her laugh and, yes, the mayor was reliable and kind, but Mrs. Edgeware was funny and kind and she had something that neither the reverend nor the mayor had: a handsome, seventeen-year-old son. Henry Edgeware was a year above Antigone in school and he was brilliant. No one had gotten higher marks in all of Piffling School than Henry Edgeware and whenever he worked as a laboratory assistant in Antigone’s biology class, she was impressed with the dextrous way he handled animal carcasses. His hands were large, but slender, with long fingers that knew precisely how to open up a frog for dissection. Sometimes, Antigone fantasized about embalming a body with him. Everyone said Henry was destined for greater things than Piffling Vale could offer him and everyone was probably right. That didn’t mean Antigone didn’t dream. She sometimes dreamed that when he inevitably left the island, she would work on her painful shyness and finally blossom into the beautiful romantic heroine she was destined to be. Then, she would leave Piffling Vale for a grand adventure - to see paintings in a gallery or explore the catacombs of Paris or see Cirque du Soleil perform or simply to drink decaf coffee somewhere while looking brooding and beautiful and mysterious - and they would meet again. They would meet and he would remember her instantly and confess that he had always loved her, ever since they were children, and that he’d always found her to be the most beautiful and intriguing woman he’d ever met and that in his own travels, no woman could ever compare. 

Of course, these fantasies probably had more to do with the book Antigone was reading between the shelves on a rainy evening and the fact that the only times she’d looked up from it, she’d seen Henry Edgeware restocking the shelves for his mother. He was as kind as he was ambitious, always helping his mother. He didn’t notice Antigone, of course, because no one ever did, but it was nice to dream. She returned to her book - “The Undertaker’s Secret Baby” by Nicola DuMaurier - and its delightfully detailed sex scene, where the heroine - a tragically beautiful musician- seduced the brooding, gothic hero. The heroine, Cecilia, straddled the hero’s lap on a piano bench in his sprawling Victorian mansion. Reginald, the hero, reached under her voluminous skirts while murmuring sweet nothings against her skin as he kissed her neck. The novel simmered towards a boil, too good to put down when Henry Edgeware’s voice on the crackling speaker cut through Antigone’s titillation -

“The library will be closing in ten minutes.”

Panic mixed with the rush of second-hand seduction as Antigone looked up to see the other patrons filing out of the library and into the grey evening. She couldn’t bring this book home. Her mother would say it was a distraction from her apprenticeship and her father would call it “shameful smut” and confiscate the book. He’d probably go to Mrs. Edgeware and berate her for giving a child such a novel. And then the whole village would find out that Antigone Funn was a depraved harlot - or she would be if anyone noticed her - and she’d be forced to wear a scarlet letter or go to prison or-

It was when Henry Edgeware gave the five-minute warning that Antigone remembered something Mrs. Edgeware had offered to do for her. It had been last year when she was reading “Sinbound” by Veronica Knight. Mrs. Edgeware had offered her a plain, paper dust jacket for the book, folded to slide over the cover and obscure both title and image from view.

“I’ve done this a time or two for Henry,” she said, “when he didn’t want his friends to make fun of him for reading ‘girl books’.”

Maybe Mrs. Edgeware would be willing to do such a kindness for Antigone again. She clutched “The Undertaker’s Secret Baby” to her chest and bellied up to the checkout counter, but Mrs. Edgeware was nowhere to be seen. Only Henry Edgeware stood at the counter, checking in books manually. Antigone considered leaving “The Undertaker’s Secret Baby” behind and slinking out. After all, Henry Edgeware never noticed her, not really-

“Are you going to check that out?” 

Henry Edgeware nodded towards “The Undertaker’s Secret Baby”. Antigone went rigid. 

“What? This? No, I-” Antigone cast about for an excuse. Then, her eyes landed on it: a copy of “Gray’s Anatomy”, just sitting on the counter. “There it is!”

She set “The Undertaker’s Secret Baby” down.

“Sorry, it’s just, that book-” she gestured towards her discarded romance novel, “- was misfiled. I was looking for this, for… For “Gray’s Anatomy”.”

“Oh,” Henry said. He cocked his head. “You’re the undertaker’s daughter, aren’t you? Antonia?”

“Yes- er - _Antigone_.”

“Like the tragedy,” Henry said. “Sophocles, right?”

“Yes, that’s right,” Antigone said. “She gets punished for giving her brother proper burial rites.”

“I know,” Henry said. “I’ve read it for Mr. Davenport’s literature class. Have you taken him yet?”

“Next year,” Antigone said. “But about this book-”

“Oh, yes. You wanted to check out “The Undertaker’s Secret Baby”, right?”

“What? No! How dare you! It was just misfiled. I was _looking for_ “Gray’s Anatomy.”.”

“Oh,” Henry said. “I thought I saw you reading the DeMaurier-”

He’d seen her? He’d actually seen her? And of course, he’d seen her reading a raunchy book? Antigone felt sick with delight and dread. She shook her head.

“I wanted “Gray’s Anatomy”,” she said. “I’m studying to be a mortician.”

“Yes, fine,” Henry said. “I suppose you’ll learn as much about the body from “Gray’s Anatomy” as you would from “The Undertaker’s Secret Baby”...”

Antigone turned hot pink from the roots of her hair. 

“If you won’t loan me the book I’m asking for,” Antigone said, “then I’ll just ask your mother-”

“Mum has the flu,” Henry said. “You’ll have to wait at least a week to ask her much of anything. So… “Gray’s Anatomy”? I suppose I can always check it out after you return it…”

He checked out her book as, red in the face, Antigone refused to look at him. If she had stayed a few minutes more, just past closing, she might have seen Henry Edgeware pick up “The Undertaker’s Secret Baby” and start to read with a curious, bemused smile on his face while murmuring one word to himself every now and again: “ _Antigone_ …” It really was too bad he was determined to leave the island when he finished school. Maybe if he'd thought there was more of a future there, he might have tried to chat Antigone Funn up another time. 


	4. Present: Getting Physical

Tipsy, Antigone tiptoed into Funn Funerals. It was well past eleven o’clock and she was certain that Rudyard had gone to bed by now. He tended to be asleep whenever she returned from the cinema and French cinema nights usually ended much earlier than her drinks with Dr. Henry Edgeware had.

Sadly, Antigone was mistaken.

Rudyard flooded the front room with light by flicking on the switch. Antigone hissed at the sudden brightness. Then, cursing, she wondered how long he’d been standing in the dark, waiting for her to come home. He never usually remembered about French cinema night. And even if, by some perverse miracle, Rudyard had remembered that Antigone would normally be at the cinema, she was a grown woman who had the perfect right to a night out. Glowering, she studied her twin brother. 

“What the bloody hell are you doing?” she snapped at him. 

“I could ask you the same,” Rudyard said. “I telephoned the cinema and no one answered.”

“Why did you telephone the cinema?”

“We’re out of jam,” Rudyard said. “I thought you might be able to pick some up on your way home.”

“Rudyard, the shops close after dark.” Antigone took a step towards the hallway, but Rudyard still blocked her way, preventing her from disappearing into her mortuary. “Can’t you get it in the morning?”

“That’s what Georgie said.”

“You called Georgie?”

“I did. And do you know what she told me?”

“To stop pestering her with inane telephone calls?”

“Herbert Cough is in Alderney,” Rudyard said. “The cinema is closed. What I want to know, Antigone, is just where you’ve been tonight. If you’d stayed out much later, I would have had to file a missing person’s report with Agatha Doyle!”

“I have a right to go out after work if I choose!” 

She huffed as she tried to push past Rudyard in the hallway. Rudyard’s eyes widened. 

“Is that  _ alcohol _ on your breath?”

“So what if it is?” Antigone snapped. “I’m a grown woman-”

“-And you know the dangers of alcohol consumption, yes,” Rudyard said. “But the only place that serves alcohol in this village is-”

“Don’t say it-”

“Chapman’s.” 

A tense silence stretched between the twins like a rubber band tested to its stretching limits.

“I don’t know what you think you’re doing,” Rudyard said, “but I don’t like the thought of you spending your time off at Chapman’s. No good can come of it.”

“I’m not making a habit of it,” Antigone said, pushing Rudyard out of the way. “And I’m sure I’ll pay for it dearly with a hangover in the morning.”

“I can’t imagine anything Chapman has at his funeral funhouse is worth the hangover you’ll have.”

Antigone paused at her mortuary door. She didn’t think of Eric Chapman as a smile twitched onto her lips. Instead, she thought of Henry’s hazel eyes, lined and tired, but full of warmth and intelligence, and the way he smiled at her when she invited him to call her by her first name. 

“Oh, I think there was something worth the hangover at Chapman’s tonight,” she murmured.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Nothing! Never mind! Shut up!”

Antigone tripped into her mortuary, slamming the door too hard behind her as she stumbled down the steps. Rudyard listened to her go and then looked at Madeline in his top pocket.

“Keep an eye on her, will you?” he asked his favorite mouse gently, lowering her into his palm. Once he received a squeak of affirmation, Rudyard lowered Madeline to the floor. “I don’t know what Antigone would think is worth the hangover she’s in for, but if she goes back to Chapman’s for it, I’ll want to know.”

Morning arrived, bright and sunny, which aggravated Antigone’s pounding headache as she emerged from the mortuary. She would have lurked downstairs for days if the idea hadn’t gripped her in her warm and wasted sleep that she would want to see Henry again, perhaps in the daylight, just to be sure that last night hadn’t been a trick of the dim lighting and alcohol. To her relief, Rudyard was already at the churchyard for a funeral when she got up and crossed the street towards Chapman Community Hospital at one o’clock that afternoon. By then, her hangover had abated and she had a plan: a few months ago, Rudyard had told her that she didn’t have a medical history. He’d gone over the paperwork with her but had not been as thorough as, perhaps, one ought to be. While he was out, Antigone opened the shoebox he kept his filing in and took her spotty medical history with her across the square. It might have been a bit forward, intimate, even, to ask Henry to review it with her, but it seemed like the most surefire way to see him again. After all, like her, he was kept busy by people who didn’t appreciate him enough to let him take an hour off for lunch. As she crossed the cobblestones, Antigone did not notice the mouse-shaped shadow trailing her into Chapman’s. She rode the lift up, muttering to herself to give herself the same courage alcohol had blessed her with last night.

“It’s only a physical,” she reminded herself. “You haven’t had one in seventeen years, but you deserve this, Antigone. You deserve to have a gentle, handsome doctor lay you out on his examination table and-”

The lift doors dinged open and Antigone stepped into the hospital. It seemed… empty. Nowhere in Chapman’s was ever ‘empty’. Looking around, she thought Chapman Community Hospital might be abandoned. If that was the case, she would simply get back in the lift and go home. Before she could turn to go, however, Eric Chapman stood up from behind the counter.

“Antigone!” he said. “What a pleasant surprise! Do you have an appointment?”

“Chapman! What are you doing here?”

“Henry’s running a little late this morning,” Chapman said. He smiled and looked at Antigone in a way that Antigone wasn’t sure she was comfortable with. A year ago, it might have intrigued her, but Chapman’s probing gaze irritated her a bit. “But if you’re here, he might be in soon.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she snapped. 

Chapman held his hands up in surrender. 

“Sorry. Let me just stick to the script,” he said. “Do you have an appointment with the doctor today?”

“No, but I’d  _ like _ to-”

“Well, you’re in luck. Henry had me clear his schedule for today. I can get you in, first thing.” Chapman wrote something down. Antigone drew nearer the reception desk and tried to see what he was writing. “What’s the reason for your visit?”

“None of your business!”

“Is it a sick visit or a well visit?” Chapman asked. 

“I- I don’t know…”

Chapman wrote down a few more things.

“Symptoms?”

“I’ll discuss it with the doctor,” Antigone said. “Why are you playing secretary?”

“I’m just helping Henry out this morning,” Chapman said. “Between you and me, he was supposed to have a big date last night…”

“Yes, I know.”

“Right.” Chapman looked at his paper. “Is there a chance that you might be pregnant?”

“What!?!”

“I have to ask for the paperwork,” Chapman said. “Is that a ‘no’ then?”

“Chapman, all I want is to see Doctor Edgeware and go home!”

“Do you want me to put ‘maybe’?”

“No!”

“Okay, sorry. It’s just a formality,” Chapman said. He handed Antigone the clipboard. “Go ahead and sign and when Dr. Edgeware gets in, I’ll send you back-”

“I’m not seeing patients until one,” a tired voice cut in as Henry Edgeware walked off the lift and into the hospital. “I still have three minutes of blissful vacation left… if you could call last night a vacation…”

“Date didn’t go well, then?” Chapman asked. 

“It depends on what you mean by ‘date’. Your so-called French girl didn’t show up, but I had drinks with the most wonderful woman until Mrs. Kingfisher went into labor.”

“Blimey. Should Mrs. Kingfisher have been drinking during her final trimester?”

“Who knows?” Henry said. “I wasn’t drinking with Mrs. Kingfisher.” Henry walked around the other side of the desk to take his lab coat off the hook and slide into it. As he did, he caught sight of Antigone and smiled. He looked as exhausted as usual, but maybe a little happy to see her when he said, “Hello, Antigone.”

“Hello, Henry.”

“I hope you aren’t here for a cure for your hangover,” he said.

“What? Oh, no. Why didn’t I think of that?”

“I’m sorry?”

“No! Nothing!” Antigone blushed.

“You aren’t feeling ill are you?” Henry asked. 

“Oh, no! No, actually-”

“I’ve taken the liberty of filling out Miss Funn’s chart for you, Henry,” Chapman said. 

“Thank you, Eric,” Henry said. “But this is one appointment I don’t think I need your help with at all.”

“Oh. Oh! Blimey!” Chapman handed Henry the clipboard. “Right. Well. Since you’ve got everything so well-in-hand, I’ll just… Right. Enjoy yourselves!”

Antigone blushed harder as she turned away from Chapman and followed Henry down the brightly colored hallways. Neither Chapman nor Henry needed to know about any fantasies that might have involved her enjoying herself while playing “doctor” with a handsome man. She followed Henry into an examination room and he read her chart as they walked, studiously avoiding her gaze. She wondered if he was embarrassed to see her or if this might have been a mistake. It was too late now.

“Miss Funn,” Henry said, gesturing to the examination table, “please, have a seat.”

“You can still call me ‘Antigone’, if you’d like,” she said, sitting down. “I… I don’t mind.”

“I’m afraid that whether I call you ‘Antigone’ or ‘Miss Funn’, you’ll have to call me ‘Dr. Edgeware’ if this is a medical appointment.” He looked hopeful for a second. “ _ Is _ it a medical appointment?”

“It is, but I don’t want it to be,” Antigone confessed. “I brought you my medical history. I… I know you don’t have it on file.”

“Ah.” Henry looked a little crestfallen but accepted the files Antigone offered him. “I wondered about that, actually. I’ve had your brother’s on file since I came back to Piffling Vale, but there wasn’t one for you. At first, I thought the rumors were true…”

“Rumors?”

“People told me you’d died while I was at medical school.”

“Ah.” Antigone frowned. “I’m sorry to disappoint.”

“No!” Henry said. “No, I’m very glad you  _ aren’t _ dead Miss F- Antigone. Very glad.”

“Really?” she asked. “You don’t have to be kind to me just because you’re my physician.”

Henry shook his head. “I wouldn’t lie about something like that. I don’t have the energy or time to lie to anyone. Least of all you.”

“Why me?”

“I’m afraid I can’t discuss my personal life with a patient,” Henry said. He began to flip through the folder Antigone handed him. “When it says ‘yes, some’ under ‘mental health’ what does that-”

“You can’t talk about your personal life with the ‘wonderful woman’ you had drinks with last night?” Antigone asked. 

Henry lowered the folder. He and Antigone locked eyes for a moment. A lick of fire sparked in his gaze and Antigone thought for a moment she saw the man who wanted to read books but only had time for cereal boxes, who made her smile and heated her insides in a way that she’d only read about in romance novels. She thought she saw him and it was enough to make her realize that whatever last night had been, it had not been a trick of the light. 

_ Oh no _ .

She might very well be falling for Piffling Vale’s only doctor in earnest. It wasn’t the first time she’d fancied Henry Edgeware, but she had thought that in the last twenty or so years, she had gotten smarter or at least better at stifling desire before it became a problem. Now, it would only be a problem insofar as the fact that even in the unlikely instance Henry felt the same way, they would never have the time to see each other.

“Not at work, I’m afraid,” Henry said softly. “I’d ask you out again, but… right now, you’re my patient. Would you like me to continue to review your medical history? Or just give you a physical?”

Antigone studied the sharp cut of Henry’s jaw and her mind whirred with what kinds of physicals she would like to have him do to her. She bit the inside of her cheek and snatched the files from his hands. Henry startled, blinking a little owlishly before smiling at her. 

“Doctor Edgeware,” she said, voice strong but wavering just a little, “I haven’t had a proper physical in seventeen years.”

“That’s far too long,” Henry said. He reached for a tongue depressor. “Open up and say ‘ahh’.”

For ten minutes he checked her ears and eyes and nose and throat. His cold, long-fingered hands palpated her lymph nodes along her neck and it was the most Antigone could recall having ever been touched in her adult life. She bit back a whimper at one point.

“Does that hurt or is it just pressure?” Henry asked.

“No, neither, shut up-” The words rushed out of Antigone in a hot stream. “Keep doing it.”

“No, there’s no need,” Henry said. “I’m done. I’m going to listen to your lungs and heart now, though. Take a deep breath.”

Antigone did and found it soothing. Henry placed his stethoscope on her back and listened. When he moved to her chest, she got her first really close look at him since last night. He looked like he hadn’t rested at all since their accidental date and Antigone’s fingers itched to touch the bags under his eyes or to stroke his silvering hair. Instead, she remembered the phone call that had cut their evening short.

“How did the delivery go?” she asked.

“I can’t discuss my other patients with you, Antigone,” he said. “Confidentiality.” 

“How are  _ you _ doing, though?” she asked. “We finished over half a bottle of wine and then you had to deliver a baby.”

“I’m… fine.”

“Are you? Did you sleep?”

“I got two hours after the delivery,” Henry confessed. 

“I’m sorry to hear that. I wish you’d gotten more of a chance to rest.”

“Your heart’s in the right place…”

“I just… I do like you, Henry. Doctor. And I want you to be well.”

“Hm? Oh, no, I meant your heart is literally in the proper place,” Henry said. “I had a man come in last week with his heart on the right side instead of the left.”

“Christ.” Antigone paused. “All the same.”

“Antigone, I wish I could talk to you about these things,” Henry said. “But right now, I’m serving you in the capacity of your doctor. It would be inappropriate to tell you that I like you, too, and that I’d forgotten how enjoyable dating could be until last night.”

“So… it  _ was _ a date?”

Henry slung his stethoscope around his neck. He sighed and nodded.

“Unless you don’t want it to have been,” he said. “I’m sure it must be awkward for you, to have the man you went out with last night touching you to check your glands-”

“I actually liked that bit. Damn! No, I mean- I just meant- Was that too much? I don’t want to upset you!”

Henry chuckled weakly.

“You should hear some of the things women say to me during mammograms,” he said. Somehow, Antigone felt like they both wished he was joking. “I don’t think I’ll report you to myself for harassment if you liked me touching your neck. Just… don’t say it again during an appointment.”

“Right. Sorry.” Antigone paused. “What if I wanted you to touch me sometime when it wasn’t during an appointment?”

“And when will that be?” Henry asked. “I don’t get days off.”

“Surely you get lunch breaks?”

He sat down in the chair facing her and put his head in his hands. His wiry shoulders slumped and Antigone couldn’t tell if he was laughing or crying. After a few seconds, Henry groaned. 

“On the record, Antigone,” he said, “despite your lifelong battle with depression and your many allergies, you have a clean bill of health. Off the record, if I ever got anything resembling a lunch break, I’d love to spend it with you.”

“Do you have an appointment this time next week?”

“Not yet,” Henry said, looking up. “I’m sure I will before the day is out.”

“You most certainly will. I’d like to book it.”

“Whatever for?” 

Antigone smiled shyly. She hadn’t planned this, but she knew beyond a doubt that this was the sort of thing a heroine did when the object of her desire was so close, yet so far. 

“ _ Lunch _ ,” she said. “One hour. Can you… pencil me in?”

“I’ll write it in pen,” Henry said. “Unless someone is dying, I will be there.”

“If someone is dying,” Antigone said, standing up. “Let Chapman and my brother battle it out.”

“That sounds completely unethical,” Henry said, rising to his feet. A smile, real as the sun breaking through the clouds, illuminated his face. He looked at least five years younger - maybe more. “But eminently practical. I’ll see you this time next week… Antigone.”

As she walked back across the square, Antigone all but strutted home. This was what a heroine did: go for what she wanted. 


	5. Past: Henry Edgeware and the Birds

The day before Henry Edgeware left for university, he presented his mother with a gift. A vibrant, green tablecloth draped over a large metal box sat in the parlor of the Edgewares’ house. Elizabeth Edgeware looked at her son curiously. He held his breath. If this didn’t work, he only had to deal with his mother’s disappointment for a short while, then he could flee to the safety of the university. 

“What’s under the cloth, Henry?” she asked, taking a step towards it and him. 

Dawn had only just arrived and soon, Henry would disembark with his belongings for the mainland, university, and, one day, medical school. Everyone always said that he was destined for greater things than Piffling Vale and whether or not that was true, Henry Edgeware needed to get away from the small community he’d known all his life. It was a big world out there, much bigger than Piffling Vale, and there was so much to see and do. Henry wanted to try it all. His one regret - his only  _ real _ regret, really - was that he wouldn’t be home with his mother. She was getting older and having never remarried after Henry’s father passed, she would be alone on this miserable little island until Henry could send for her. That was where his present came in. He ripped the cloth from the cage and a macaw with glossy feathers peered out of the cage at the pair of them. Elizabeth clapped her hands to her mouth.

“Oh, Henry…!”

“Her name is Esther,” he said. 

“She’s beautiful.” Elizabeth drew nearer to the cage. “Hello, Esther… Aren’t you a pretty girl?”

The parrot squawked and fluttered her wings as if showing off. Henry smiled. Someday, when he made enough money, he would send for his mother and Esther both and put them up in a comfortable flat to be looked after. For now, he could only hope Esther would look after his mum. 

“Do you like her?” he asked. “I don’t want you to get lonely while I’m away.”

“I love her,” Elizabeth confessed. She reached for her son’s hand and held it tight. “But… when you say ‘while you’re away’... You promise to come visit, don’t you?” 

“When I can,” Henry said. “I’ll be very busy.”

“Just every now and again, Henry,” Elizabeth said. “That’s all I’m asking. Just every now and again.”

Henry sighed and nodded, agreeing to visit ‘every now and again’ before hugging his mother goodbye and taking his trunks to the ferry. Piffling shrank on the horizon and into nothing. Even though he promised his mother he'd be back every now and again, he knew that his mother would be the only thing that could entice him to the island again and that even then, he'd never stay for long. How could he? Who could? He had classmates, certainly, who were content in their village’s confines, but Henry was not one of them. He settled into uni and enrolled in classes. Though he assured his mother he was doing all sorts of things that she would have wanted to see him do - rollerskating with friends, visiting museums, reading lots of books - the truth was that Henry only did some of these things. Most of his time was swallowed up by immense courseloads. If his friends were marathoning through school, Henry was sprinting at a pace that, if it had been physical, might have impressed old Mr. Askey, the drill sergeant of a P.E. teacher who terrorized generations of Piffling youth. Henry didn’t think about the likes of Mr. Askey - or any of them, really - except on Sunday nights when he called his mother to check-in. She prattled on about days that, to Henry, seemed indistinguishable from one another. She told him about the new children who came to the library and the old folks who died off. She spoke about Doctor Ridley, Piffling’s old physician, who was in bad need of an apprentice.

“He asks about you a lot,” Elizabeth said. “How your classes are coming, when you’ll have that medical license…”

“Not soon enough,” Henry lamented. “One year in and the end seems no nearer than when I left Piffling.”

“When are you coming back? You did promise to visit.”

“I did,” Henry said, “and I will, but there just hasn’t been time-”

“Just every now and again, Henry,” Elizabeth said. “That’s all I’m asking: just every now and again.”

“Yes, Mum, I know,” Henry said. He leaned against the cool windowpane and watched his breath fog the January glass. 

“You’d said you were coming home for Christmas,” Elizabeth reminded him.

“I know. I’ll be home next Christmas.”

“You don’t have to wait for a bank holiday. It’s a short enough ferry ride. You could take a long weekend…”

“I don’t have  _ time _ to take a long weekend,” Henry said. “I’ll have time when I’m a doctor. I’ll have time and money and I can send for you and Esther and set you up in a nice flat-”

“You might consider coming home,” said Elizabeth. “Doctor Ridley isn’t getting any younger. Neither am I for that matter.”

“Don’t say that.” Henry sighed. “Doctor Ridley will be around forever and then when he’s not, NHS is going to send some poor, young soul to Piffling as punishment for being too young and stupid to realize what a hellhole it is.”

“Don’t say that,” Elizabeth echoed. “Piffling Vale is a perfectly lovely little village. It might be a nice place to settle down, raise a family.”

Henry laughed. 

“I don’t have time to date,” he said. 

“You need to take some time for yourself,” Elizabeth said. “Just every now and again, Henry.”

Henry made a skeptical sound and pursed his lips. On the busy sidewalk below, he could see couples and families hurrying by as the snow turned into sleet. A woman in a red hat bundled into the side of a man in a brown jacket as they smoked cigarettes below his apartment window. He envied them. They didn’t care what nicotine would do to their insides and they were happy not only in their ignorance but in each other’s company. He had only considered wanting that once or twice in passing. 

“Is the funeral home still on the island?” he asked.

“Yes, of course.”

“How are the Funns?”

“Well, since the parents died, Rudyard Funn has been running the place. I think Roderick would have been proud of him, though he’d never say,” she said. 

“And the sister?”

“I haven’t seen much of Antigone since the funeral,” Elizabeth confessed. “She hasn’t been to the library in months. I’ve gone by to check on her, but every time I have, Rudyard starts talking to me about pre-booking a service.”

“What a horrible man.” Henry continued to stare at the couple. “You’re decades away from needing one of their services.”

Elizabeth sighed. 

“Come home, Henry,” she said. “Just for a weekend. Your friend, Basil Corbett has been elected to the Village Council. We’re having a big celebration for him.”

“Do you really think I have time to celebrate, Mum?”

“Just every now and again, Henry,” a third voice chimed. “Just every now and again.”

“Dear God, who was that?” Henry asked. He stopped looking at the chain-smoking couple outside. 

“Oh, that’ll be Esther,” Elizabeth said. “She’s such a joy to have around. A better listener than a conversationalist, though…” 

“I didn’t know she could speak. What else does she say?”

“Oh.” Elizabeth’s embarrassment was palpable through the receiver. “Just that.” 

“Oh. Clever bird, if she just picked it up.”

“I think she’s heard me say it often enough,” Elizabeth said with a sigh. “Come home, Henry.”

“Just every now and again,” he said. 

“Yes, just every now and again.”

Henry booked a ticket for the weekend ferry to Piffling for the following Friday. He rode the ferry with dread to his childhood home, but quickly forgot his trepidation when he saw his mother and some of his old friends. Much of Piffling Vale remained as it had been for the years of Henry’s childhood. The village square still contained Stanley Carmichael’s antique shop - which would never be anything more spectacular than a place to buy overpriced, secondhand junk - and the stately funeral home that had been there since the fifteenth century. As Henry passed it on his way to the pub to meet up with Basil Corbett to buy him a celebratory round of drinks, he thought about stopping in and saying “hello” to Antigone Funn and maybe asking why she didn’t stop by the library more. Truthfully, he wanted to ask her to check in on his mum on his behalf. Though she insisted she was fine and well, Henry was close enough to being a doctor to know when he was being lied to. His mother was getting older and though Esther must have provided company, she couldn’t help with carrying in the groceries or picking up Elizabeth’s medications. Antigone Funn had always been so kind to Henry’s mum that he thought there might be no one better to trust. Admittedly, it might have been nice to see her again, too. She’d always been a weird, funny thing, Roman nose stuck in a book and scowling at everyone who came within ten feet of her, but Henry remembered catching glimpses of her between library stacks and one incident where she made her brother faint during biology class and he had thought - privately, not that he would have told anyone back then - she was beautiful when her dark eyes gleamed with triumph or her pale skin flushed with excitement. Nowadays, she had probably grown into her gangly limbs, maybe filled out a bit instead of being shaped like a malnourished carrot and even if she  _ hadn’t _ , Henry was finally old enough not to care about those sorts of things before asking a girl out. He almost went up to the door and knocked, but he saw Rudyard Funn peering out of the window and rather than risk a conversation with him - one that would probably come to blows, since Rudyard was insistent about Elizabeth’s eventual funeral - Henry made his way to the pub. 

Since Henry had left the island, Basil had grown a funny mustache that curled limply at the ends. Henry tried to tell him it was ridiculous, but Basil insisted it made his fellow council members respect him more. Henry wasn’t going to argue with that: it probably did. This was Piffling Vale, after all. They talked about their old friends and their families and as the drinks flowed more freely and Basil made a few unsuccessful passes at Harriet Marriot, who was serving their drinks. 

“Do you have a girlfriend, then?” Basil asked when Henry laughed at him for failing to get Harriet’s number a third time as if he couldn’t look it up in the phone book. “Some fancy London bird?”

“I don’t want ‘some fancy London bird’,” Henry said.

“Or bloke. I won’t judge.”

“No, I don’t want a bloke, either,” Henry said. He took a deep drink of his ale. “No, no one in London has caught my eye.”

“I find that hard to believe,” Basil said. 

“I don’t have time to date,” Henry amended. “I’m going to finish school early, become a doctor and-”

“That sounds more like the Henry Edgeware I know. You’ve got to make time to date, though. We aren’t getting any younger.”

“We’re twenty.”

“You look almost twice that,” Basil said. “Are you getting any sleep?”

“You’ve been talking to my mum.”

“She misses you,” said Basil, wiping his mustache clean. “We all do. Have you thought about taking over for Doctor Ridley someday?” 

“I’d rather not,” Henry said. “I want to open my own practice in London. Move mum into, I don’t know, a townhouse that’ll let her keep the bird…”

“We’ve got to find  _ you _ a bird.” Basil poked Henry in the ribs. “Maybe this weekend, eh?”

“There is one woman I’ve been wondering about…”

“Yeah?”

“Do you remember Antigone?”

Basil stared at Henry blankly. Henry repeated himself a few times.

“Antigone Funn,” he said. “She was a year below us in school. Her brother runs the funeral parlor now.”

“You fancied Antigone Funn?” Basil asked. “The scrawny girl with the pollen suit?”

“She has allergies, Basil. I’m sure if Doctor Ridley could be bothered to read current medical journals, he’d be able to sort her out with a Claritin or nasal spray-”

“Right, no. No, I’m not… It’s not about the allergies, mate,” Basil said. “It’s just… Antigone Funn?”

“If you’re going to make fun of me, I’m going to get back on that ferry and never-”

“No. Sorry. It’s just… I can’t believe you haven’t heard. It’s been all around the village,” said Basil. “Henry… I’m sorry… but Antigone Funn died ages ago. No one saw the body, but if you ask her brother… I’m sorry, Henry.”

Henry Edgeware wouldn’t know that this particular bit of news was a rumor until some years later, not until after he was Piffling Vale’s practicing physician, and certainly not after getting so blindingly drunk with Basil Corbett that night that his hangover lasted for three days after he left Piffling Vale and returned to his life in London. And by the time Henry Edgeware knew that Antigone Funn was alive and had been this entire time, he really was, as he had once told his mother, too busy to date. 


	6. Of Second Dates and Second Chances

After another twelve medical appointments that flooded his office when Antigone left, Henry was finally able to leave Chapman Community Hospital, make his rounds with his long-term care patients at St. Spratt’s, and go home. Esther was waiting up for him. She sat on her perch, flapping her wings when Henry arrived home. Merry squawks filled the air as he filled her food dish with parrot mix and offered her some Brazillian nuts from his trail mix by means of apology.

“Someday, things will be different,” he promised her. 

Esther clutched a nut in her talons and brought it to her beak. She didn’t have to speak for Henry to sense her reproach. He sighed and drew up a kitchen chair by her cage. Bouncing his leg to stay awake and moving, he wondered how much Esther understood about the last forty-eight hours. 

“Eric set me up on a blind date,” he told her, “but the woman didn’t show.”

Esther lowered her foot from her mouth. Henry would have sworn that if she could say she was sorry, she would.

“It was for the better,” he assured her, popping her cage door open and letting her climb out. When she perched comfortably atop the cage, he offered her another nut. “Antigone Funn came instead. Do you remember Antigone Funn? I used to talk about her when I first returned to Piffling-”

“Just every now and again, Henry,” Esther squawked.

Henry laughed weakly and rubbed the back of his neck.

“You don’t need to be sarcastic,” he said. “I was obsessed those first few months, wanted to thank her for making Mum’s funeral special, but I never did see her and I eventually gave up trying. She’s left the house a lot more in the last year, though. I should have diagnosed her with agoraphobia when she came to see me today, but what good would it have done?”

“Henry…”

“Sorry. I just… Antigone Funn joined me on my date,” he told Esther. “It was the best date I’ve ever been on. Not that I’ve been on many dates since taking my post here…” 

Henry slipped Esther a few raisins. She picked at them with less enthusiasm than the nuts, but Henry couldn’t tell if that was because they were squishy or if it was because she was waiting to hear him say more. He decided it was the latter. It had to be. Since his mum’s death and the needs of Piffling Vale had disrupted his life forever, Esther had been his best friend. Even Eric Chapman didn’t understand him as well as Esther did. 

“She’s at once the chthonic Persephone, reigning in her underground underworld and guiding souls into the afterlife and the maiden Kore, who brings forth the beauty and respite of spring.” Henry sighed. “She’s so intelligent and self-assured and artistic… and like a goddess, she deserves to be worshiped.”

“Every now and again, Henry,” Esther squawked, dropping her raisins and flying the short distance to his shoulder. “Just every now and again.”

Henry stroked her glossy feathers.

“Oh, no,” he said, “if I had the time, I would devote myself to her like an acolyte every hour of every day. As it is… I scarcely even have an hour a week. She deserves better. She really does.”

Esther bit Henry’s finger, gently admonishing him. 

“She’s asked me out next week,” he said, raising his finger and lowering it so that Esther’s head bobbed up and down. “She made a proper appointment and everything… She’s so  _ clever _ Esther. I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve her favor. She makes me laugh, Esther, and no one does that anymore. She makes me feel  _ alive _ . We’re going for lunch together and … I do deserve it, don’t I?”

Cheekily, Esther let go of Henry’s finger.

“Every now and again.”

Henry relaxed. For a few minutes more, he spoke of the passion that ignited Antigone’s eyes and warmed his skin like sunlight. He spoke about her intelligence and how he was certain she was the only intellectual peer he might actually have in Piffling Vale - no offense meant to Eric Chapman, of course. He whispered of her beauty to Esther: Antigone’s proud nose and sharp cheekbones, the latter of which blushed easily; her dark eyes and messy dark hair that he wanted to run his fingers through. If it wasn’t Piffling Vale and she wasn’t Antigone Funn, a woman as tall and striking as she was would surely be a fashion model. Here, she, like Henry, was written off and wasted by her neighbors. Underappreciated. Henry wanted to appreciate her and must have said so half a dozen times before getting up and going to the bookshelf, full of titles he hadn’t had a chance to read since returning to Piffling Vale. He found it, coated in a thick layer of dust. He wriggled “Persuasion” from the shelf.

“How about I read to you until we fall asleep or the telephone rings?” he offered. Esther pressed her head against his cheek and they settled onto the couch. “‘ Sir Walter Elliot, of Kellynch Hall, in Somersetshire, was a man who, for his own amusement, never took up any book but the Baronetage-’”

He fell asleep around chapter three and dreamt of Antigone in a white, Regency gown, staining her wry-smiling lips with pomegranates. He’d try to read again tomorrow night. 

The week crept by for Antigone, who emerged from her mortuary earlier in the mornings now to peer out the window and stare at Chapman’s and wait to catch a glimpse of Henry clocking in at the island’s second hospital. She only saw him once, the day they were due to go out, looking less harried than she recalled him ever looking. He caught sight of her in the window and smiled and waved. Shyly, Antigone raised her hand to wave back. She thought of rushing towards the door but her toast popped up and she ducked quickly back into the kitchen to butter it before the eleven seconds of optimal toast preparation passed her by. Rudyard looked up from Piffling Matters agitatedly.

“Why do you do that?” he asked.

“If you don’t butter the toast within eleven seconds, it turns int a dry, crumbly disaster and there is no greater tragedy than-”

“No,” he said. “Every morning you’ve been staring out at Chapman’s. Why?”

“Oh, like you don’t stare across the square at Chapman’s every day for half an hour!” Antigone snapped. 

Rudyard pursed his lips.

“That’s different,” he said. “I’m asserting dominance.”

“That’s _insane_!” Antigone reached for the jam. “ _You’re_ insane.”

“Maybe, but I think he finally knows runs this village…”

“Christ.” 

Antigone took her toast to the breakfast table. She ate in silence as Rudyard went on about how things had been looking up since his appointment as the village historian and how, someday, he would really prove to Chapman what an important man he was. He continued much in this way as Antigone washed dishes and didn’t notice an hour later when she slipped down to her mortuary or two hours later when she left Funn Funerals altogether. It was a good thing, too, because if Rudyard had noticed Antigone scuttle across the square to Chapman’s, she would never have ever heard the end of it. 

She arrived at Chapman’s pub - a busier spot as the lunch crowd began to arrive than the wine bar had been - and allowed a waiter to seat her at a table. She regretted this almost immediately. If she had been seated in a booth, she could have curled up in the shadows and hidden from view until Henry arrived. At a table, she was in the center of the restaurant. She’d arrived about an hour early and felt as if she could see and could be seen by everyone in Chapman’s Pub. Her mother had always told her and Rudyard that it was rude to be late to anything and each twin had taken it to heart in a very different way. While Rudyard insisted upon making his punctuality one of the rudest things about himself, Antigone liked to think she made hers polite and caring. Not that she’d ever had many people to be polite and caring toward. Henry deserved it though, didn’t he? He was smart and kind and gentle. It hadn’t escaped Antigone’s notice this morning, when she saw him across the square, just how handsome he was with his silvering brown hair and bright, if exhausted, eyes. He’d always been handsome, but in adulthood, he looked like the reality of a novel’s dirty professor who might bend a girl over the desk for discipline or a tragically widowed baronet with a willful daughter who badly needed a governess or… or a thousand other things if he wasn’t so tired. He was not made of rippling pectorals and Adonis’ good looks. He was a more understated hero - if Antigone was the heroine - and he might understand her love for books, her busy schedule of an island of illness, injury, and death, and her fierce, if quiet, desire to take a holiday as far from Piffling Vale as she could. After the waiters circled her table a third time, she ordered a lemonade to keep them from bothering her for a little while. And then she practiced what she knew of flirting.

"Hello, Henry,” she whispered to herself, trying to make her voice soft and velvety. “How are you, today, Henry?”

Was it good enough to merely repeat his name and ask him questions about himself? She’d tried that once and in the end, a man had been murdered by a waitress as an indirect result. Maybe she ought to try  _ banter _ , like the characters in her books.

“Well, well, Henry,” she tried again, “I wouldn’t mind if you… ah … performed an invasive procedure on me.”

Oh, this was hopeless. How did you let a man know on your second date that your body and soul screamed for his hands to touch your skin without sounding madly desperate? Antigone tried a few more pickup lines and her shoulders slumped. She’d been here for half an hour and Henry hadn’t arrived. He still had about twenty minutes, but  _ still _ .

“This was a mistake,” she muttered to herself as waiters circled her table, vulture-like in their offers to refill her glass or bring her the bill. 

She staved them off for thirty minutes when she was certain that Henry was going to stand her up. Antigone reached into her pocketbook to pay for her untouched lemonade when the chair across from her scraped across the wood. She looked up to see Henry, clutching a bouquet of irises. Their bluish-purple blooms protruded from the wrapping and a little white card nestled among them. They were not red roses and maybe Antigone didn’t want them to be, but what she wanted more than flowers was for Henry to have been on time. 

He was five minutes late.

“I was just about to leave,” Antigone confessed.  “I thought you might have… forgotten me.”

Her last words were whispered as she tucked her hair behind her ears and looked down at the table. 

“How could I?” Henry asked. He took his seat.

“You wouldn’t be the first.” Antigone thought of a school dance and being swept up with deflated balloons and discarded streamers at the end of the night. She couldn’t meet Henry’s gaze. 

“Have you been waiting long?” he asked.

“Not long,” Antigone lied. “Five minutes.”

She looked up and saw Henry staring at the melted ice in her glass and the wet ring that had formed on her napkin. His mouth rounded into a gentle “oh”. Before he spoke, Antigone tensed up. She knew how men were. If they were anything like her brother or Chapman, they’d start an argument without even making the slightest attempt at empathy. It had been a mistake to ask Henry Edgeware to lunch-

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “Douglas Maxwell broke his arm again on the waterslide. I got tied up at the hospital, but that’s no excuse to have kept you waiting. I should have called ahead at the very least.”

Antigone stared at Henry. No one apologized to her like that. No one. 

“Would you really have called?” she asked. “Or are you just saying it?”

“If it ever happens again, I will call,” Henry promised. “I can’t imagine what you must have thought, waiting here for… for five minutes.” 

Antigone’s eyes fell on the irises again.

“Are those for me?” 

“This too,” Henry said, reaching into his breast pocket and pulling out a prescription of allergy medication, stronger than the over-the-counter stuff Chapman had offered her last year. “Just in case.”

Antigone smiled and thanked him, took an allergy tablet and then reached not for the flowers, but the card inside.

“‘ _My idea of good company is the company of clever, well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company,_ ’” she read aloud. “ _‘For Antigone Funn: the best company I’ve ever had on this island.’_ Oh, Henry…”

“It’s from “Persuasion”,” he said. “It took a couple of nights to finish reading, but I found the time to take your advice. I see why you like it so much.”

“It’s lovely. No one has ever written me a card before.” She paused. “Or a… love note?”

“Do you like it? There were so many other quotes in the book that I wanted to… I know it isn’t the most romantic quote…”

“It’s perfect,” Antigone said. She wondered what other quotes in a story about two people who’d been in love in their youth and then cruelly torn apart for eight years he might have wanted to have written down for her. She didn’t dare let herself get too hopeful. That he’d read it at all touched her. That he’d written her a love note and gotten her flowers and ensured she wouldn’t have an allergic reaction to them touched her.

And so, Antigone touched him. Her hand reached across the table and wrapped around Henry’s. 

“I only have you for an hour,” she said, “so if I don’t get a chance to say it later… thank you for lunch today.”

“If I don’t get a chance to tell you later,” Henry said, “it was a pleasure and I hope we can do it again some time.”

“Same time next week?” Antigone ventured.

“I want to take you out for dinner,” said Henry. “A fancy night out where we can see the stars-”

“You don’t mean-”

“The yacht club, yes,” Henry said. “I rarely get to use my membership and I can’t think of a better reason to do so than to take you out.”

“Oh.” Antigone’s face fell. “Henry…”

“You don’t have to say yes,” he said. “I understand if it’s too forward-”

“No! No, I want to,” said Antigone, biting her lip. “It’s just… I’ve been banned from the yacht club. I went on a date there once and…”

“It went badly?”

“He groped a waitress and she put a pinata stick through his eye,” Antigone confessed. “They’ve banned me from coming back.”

“I remember that case! Seymour Proffitt, wasn’t it?” Henry said. “He was always a horrible boy in school, would try to cheat off my exams. … You didn’t put the pinata stick through his eye, did you?”

“Oh, I wanted to,” Antigone said passionately. “He tried to use us for a tax scam and only went out with me so he could bury a coffin full of money in the cemetery. You aren’t… asking me out as part of an elaborate tax scam, are you?”

“No! No. I’ve wanted to ask you out for the longest time.”

“You never noticed me before last week.” 

Antigone reached for her watered-down lemonade for the first time since ordering it. She sipped it judgmentally, steadying the straw with one hand and refusing to let go of Henry with the other. 

“I noticed you,” Henry started. “You used to come into the library all the time and pick out an armful of books. I even saw my mother wrapping your bodice-ripping romances the way she’d wrap my books of poetry so no one had to know what you were reading-”

“You never used my name in school,” said Antigone. “You always thought that I was weird.” 

“Yes, well, everyone in this village is a bit weird.” 

“Then why me?”

Henry paused, maybe to think or maybe because the waiter placed a glass of water in front of him. He thanked the man and looked back at Antigone. Inhaling deeply, he looked into her eyes. Antigone couldn’t help but be surprised at the warmth she saw there, as well as the sadness. Maybe he was telling the truth.

“At my mother’s funeral I first thought your weirdness and mine might have gotten along,” Henry said. “One of my biggest regrets was not asking you out in school.” 

“You don’t need to exaggerate. The flowers were enough. And the note. And the allergy pills.” 

“No, it’s true,” said Henry. “The day you checked out “Gray’s Anatomy” from the library, I thought about it, but I also thought I’d never come back to Piffling and that it’d be unfair to you to ask you out only to leave a few months later.”

Antigone’s mouth popped open slightly. She grazed her thumb along the back of Henry’s hand. 

“Did you come back because of your mother’s death?” she asked quietly. She remembered Mrs. Edgeware’s funeral and how much she’d regretted not checking in with her more frequently while her son was away. It would have been the kind thing to do.

“Yes. I wanted to thank you for the care you took of her.” 

“It was years ago,” Antigone mumbled. 

“I still think about it. It was one of the kindest things anyone has done for me.” 

“I did it for her,” she half-lied. 

“All the same… thank you,” said Henry. A waiter brought them their menus. “We should order before anyone needs me at the hospital.”

“Let’s,” Antigone said. “I tried memorizing the menu while I waited for you.”

Across the room, two pairs of eyes watched Antigone and Henry’s date. Eric Chapman looked over at Madeline the mouse and he smiled. 

“Let’s neither of us tell Rudyard about this,” he said. “Not just yet.”

Though Chapman couldn’t understand Madeline’s squeaking, he just had to hope that it was a squeak of agreement and that Antigone and Henry would be allowed to enjoy themselves. God only knew how much they both deserved it. 


	7. Past: Anatomical Studies

Biology class was theoretically Antigone’s favorite. Even though, more often than not, she was saddled with Rudyard as a lab partner, it was the class most germaine to her future career field. She excelled when given a diagram to label or a specimen to dissect. If she was more outspoken, Mrs. Bradshaw would have surely recognized her genius with more than just a “good job” sticker. Antigone watched as her classmates earned praise for imprecise-but-close-enough answers. It infuriated her. The sciences called for precision. It wasn’t like her literature class, where her morbid poetry could be given top marks by a teacher who didn’t want to upset her delicate mental constitution. The sciences called for focus. It wasn’t like her history class where she could make educated guesses at what filled the gaps of time that she’d ignored to doodle her-crush-of-the-week’s name in her notebook. 

And focus was what Antigone Funn lacked at this particular moment.

She sat at her lab table, wearing goggles and gloves and staring at sharp tools that reminded her of the mortuary. Just beyond them on a metal tray was a dead shark. Mr. Whittaker had donated his catch to the Piffling School’s biology department for experimentation. Antigone looked forward to dissection days passionately. On dissection days, she was able to truly shine, making the cleanest incisions in class, and on dissection days, Henry Edgeware spent his off period in the lab, helping Mrs. Bradshaw monitor student progress. In anticipation of the day, as their history teacher talked about the War of the Roses, Antigone had written Henry’s name next to hers two dozen times. She dotted the “I” in her name with an anatomically correct heart every time and if that wasn’t enough to proud of, she was proud of how her name looked next to his surname: Mrs. Antigone Edgeware. She wasn’t  _ obsessed  _ with Henry, of course. He was a year above her and handsome and smart and kind, but very  _ busy _ and easy enough to forget when surrounded by the attractive students in her year. He was  _ impossible _ to forget when he walked up and down the aisles of the lab. He looked dignified in his labcoat, like a proper doctor or researcher. It made Antigone’s insides flutter as she imagined serving as his nurse or assistant and being pinned to one of the cold, resin lab tables. She’d read a romance novel like that in preparation for dissection day, just in case the opportunity presented itself. 

“- Antigone, are you even listening to me?” Rudyard asked, cutting into her daydreams with sharp precision she wished he’d reserve for the dissection. “I don’t  _ want _ to cut open the shark.”

Antigone tore her eyes away from Henry to look at her brother. It was disappointing to look at Rudyard after watching Henry’s lab coat flutter around his calves. Rudyard looked much like Antigone herself: all sharp angles and monochrome. Sometimes, when a teacher actually did notice Antigone, they called her “Rudyard” and she wanted to die more than usual. She kept hoping that her chest would develop into one of those heaving bosoms she read so much about and that her feminine charm would shine through her semi-permanent scowl. She scowled now at Rudyard, in part because he interrupted her fantasies and in part because he was being so bloody difficult.

“Mum went over this with you last night,” she said. “If you can’t dissect a shark, how are you going to handle working in a mortuary?”

“I don’t  _ want _ to work in the mortuary,” Rudyard said. “I  _ want _ to schedule funerals and shush unruly mourners.”

“You can’t only do half of the work, Rudyard!” Antigone hissed.

“Yes, I can,” he said. “You love the mortuary. You’ll be a mortician and I’ll be an undertaker and together, we’ll run Piffling Vale’s only funeral home. It will be glorious.”

Antigone sighed. 

“Glorious or not, before that can happen, you need to help me dissect this shark,” she said. “If you don’t finish school, no one will think you’re a capable undertaker.”

“I don’t need to dissect a shark to finish school-”

“You need to do three dissections in biology in order to pass the class,” Antigone said. “And the shark will be the last one.”

Rudyard scowled. 

“That’s ridiculous,” he said. “I don’t want to be a sushi chef. I will never, ever have to dissect a shark again in my life.”

“So just get it over with!” Antigone snapped. “It will be good practice for embalming-”

“No, it won’t,” Rudyard said. “The human anatomy and a shark’s anatomy are completely different. For one thing, sharks are cold-blooded-”

“Some of the recent science says they  _ aren’t _ , actually-”

“And for another they have  _ gills _ . Mr. Whittaker is the only human being on Piffling with  _ gills _ , Antigone!”

“Oh, for the love of Christ-!”

“Is everything okay over here?” 

Henry approached the table. His hazel eyes swept over the twins, but Antigone would have sworn he looked at her a fraction of a second longer than he looked at Rudyard. A small smile tugged at his lips. Suddenly, Antigone’s mouth was very dry and she couldn’t find words to tell him that he looked fetching in his lab coat or that her brother was a moron and he oughtn’t judge her by Rudyard’s standard. 

So Rudyard spoke up.

“I would like to lodge a complaint with the principal,” he said. “It seems utterly ridiculous that one has to complete three dissections in order to pass this class.”

“Well,” Henry said, “it  _ is _ biology. You can only really understand the workings of the body by opening it up and having a look inside.” 

“Be that as it may,” Rudyard said, “not all of us need to know the workings of the body.”

“Aren’t you going to run the funeral parlor when you grow up?” Henry asked. 

“Thank you!” crowed Antigone. “Finally, someone who understands!”

“Antigone will sort out all that nasty business,” Rudyard said. “She likes dead things.”

“Don’t tell him that!” Antigone turned purple with fury and embarrassment. “Rudyard!”

“What? It’s true. You like all that business with fluids and inspecting the human body-”

“Jesus.” If she could disappear through the floor, Antigone would.

“It’s just one dissection,” Henry said with a heavy sigh. “And if Antigone is your lab partner, it sounds like you’re in very capable hands.”

At that, Henry wandered away from the table. Breathing hard, Antigone watched him go. Once he was out of earshot, she rounded on Rudyard.

“What the bloody hell was that about?” 

“I told him the truth,” Rudyard said tartly. “And he seems to think highly of you for it. You can thank me later.”

“Why would I want to thank you?! You made me sound like some kind of freak!”

“Yes, who has capable hands, according to Henry Edgeware,” Rudyard said. “I saw you doodling his name in your notes the second Mr. Bridges said that Henry the Sixth’s religiosity was overstated in Shakespeare’s-”

“My notes are  _ private _ !”

“Be that as it may,” said Rudyard, “I noticed you liked Henry Edgeware and now, thanks to me, he thinks you have capable hands and that just  _ sounds _ like that sexually deviant drivel you’re always reading.”

“Shut up!”

Rudyard shrugged and sighed.

“I do wish I had gotten out of the dissection,” he said. “But maybe Henry’s right. If you’re my lab partner, I don’t have to do too much of the dirty work.” 

“What are you going to do? Plan the shark’s memorial service?”

That shut Rudyard up long enough to get Mrs. Bradshaw’s instructions. Antigone decided that even though she loathed Rudyard for embarrassing her in front of Henry Edgeware on dissection day, he didn’t deserve to fail the class. Rather, she didn’t deserve to have him fail the class because knowing Rudyard, he’d cut her hair in her sleep and tell her to go to biology in his stead in exchange for taking the remainder of her history courses. It wasn’t worth it. They’d get top marks on the shark dissection, even if Rudyard didn’t deserve it and Antigone would work in the mortuary with Mum when they went home before disappearing to her bedroom to write about her horrible day in her journal. Her angry gaze fixated on the shark and on doing everything right. Beside her, Rudyard retched with each glimpse into the shark.

“Will you quit?” Antigone asked. “You’re going to make me lose focus.”

“It’s disgusting!” Rudyard protested. “How can you stand to-”

He gagged again and Henry looked over at them. Antigone prayed he wouldn’t come over again or that if he did, it was because he was impressed with her. As it was, he seemed very impressed by Jerry and Bill’s shark, which was bound to be less than perfect, but was probably their best dissection of the year. Mrs. Bradshaw sat at her desk, grading, and ignoring them all, allowing Henry to monitor the class. He wandered to the front of the room and stood, tall and commanding in front of them all. 

“For your final step,” Henry said, “you’re going to open the stomach of the shark. Sharks eat all sorts of things - not just fish and seals, but also all sorts of garbage: soda bottles, tires, shoes... Whole suits of armor have been found inside the bellies of sharks. I want you to open the shark’s stomach and see what sort of things your shark ate and record it for your lab report.”

An idea entered Antigone’s head. There might have been a way to impress Henry and revenge herself on Rudyard. While Rudyard turned his head away from the shark to gag some more, Antigone made a small incision on the underside or the shark’s sausage-shaped stomach.

“Rudyard,” she said, “You’re going to have to do this last step.”

“I don’t see why…”

“I’ve done everything else,” Antigone said as calmly as she could. “You need to do  _ something _ or I’ll tell Mrs. Bradshaw that you were no help and you’ll need to take biology again next year.”

“You wouldn’t-!”

“I would,” Antigone lied. “So. I’ll hold the stomach for you and you’ll make the final incision.”

“This is so degrading,” Rudyard grumbled, picking up the scalpel. “All right.”

He hesitated and then, finally made a messy incision on the top of the shark’s stomach. As he pulled away the scalpel, cursing under his breath, Antigone slid her middle finger into her incision so that when her brother looked into the stomach of the shark, he saw a human finger. His already pale face paled further. Then, Antigone wriggled her finger. 

Several things happened at once. First, Antigone wriggled her finger, then Rudyard yelped. Henry Edgeware looked over. Rudyard pointed to the shark and yelled, “Finger!” and then fainted dead away. He hit the linoleum floor hard. Henry rushed over and Mrs. Bradshaw looked up from her grading for the first time in the last hour. Henry looked at Rudyard’s lifeless body and then he looked at Antigone. She smiled blushingly at him and wriggled her finger some more. Henry looked like he was about to laugh when Mrs. Bradshaw rushed over. 

“Mr. Edgeware, take Mr. Funn to the nurse’s station,” she said. 

Henry lifted Rudyard from the floor. Antigone slipped her finger out of the shark. Mrs. Bradshaw looked at her and peered into the shark’s stomach. Inside, she could only find remnants of fish and a twist-off beer bottlecap. She sighed.

“You Funns are a menace,” she muttered. “I’ll be so glad to have some peace next year when you take Chemistry with Mr. Bigley.” 

Later that afternoon, as Antigone and Rudyard walked home, Rudyard moaned and grumbled to himself about having to leave the nurse’s station to walk home. He clutched an ice pack to the back of his head. Antigone, smiling to herself, studied the blue skies. 

“Do you really think Henry Edgeware noticed me?” she asked when Rudyard’s whining abated. 

“Why do you care about that  _ now _ ?” Rudyard asked. “I tried to set you two up and you complained the whole while. Do you know what the worst thing is?”

Antigone’s stomach flipped.

“What?”

“They didn’t even give me a juice-box when I fainted,” Rudyard said. “Can you believe it?”

“You don’t deserve a juice-box,” she said. “Not if your idea of setting my up with Henry was to tell him I like dead things.”

“Well,” Rudyard said tartly. “I didn’t lie to him. And if it’s any consolation, he told me I was bloody lucky you’re brilliant at biology because if it wasn’t for you, I probably would have failed the class.”

“You can thank me later,” Antigone said, marching ahead on the sidewalk and smiling that at least one good thing had come of the day.


	8. Present: The Best Dates Come in Threes

After her date with Henry, which turned into a deep discussion of “Persuasion”, his argument in favor of early twentieth-century poetry, and her vehement passion for French cinema, Antigone preserved the irises in solution in her mortuary. The vibrant blooms livened up her dark space and she wanted to know why he’d chosen them. She’d read one of her mother’s old books on flower language and no light was shed on their meaning: faith, perhaps, or hope; admiration, maybe, or passion. She doubted Henry knew that about flowers unless Petunia Bloom told him as much. She wondered if Petunia Bloom wondered who the flowers were for and if she _knew_ that Antigone and Henry were dating. Did anyone in the village know? Despite meeting up for a coffee at the crack of dawn at Chapman’s cafe - Antigone had a rooibos tea and told Henry that caffeine turned her hair green. He smiled wickedly and said that if anyone could make green hair look good it’d be her before being paged into work - Antigone wasn’t sure if they _were_ dating. They had their third official date - maybe fourth - on Friday night. Excitement coursed through her veins the whole week. When she’d gone to French Cinema Night at the Piffling Royale, she’d spent the love scenes fantasizing about Henry murmuring sleepy French down her spine and the depressing scenes imagining him asleep in the seat next to her so that she had a shoulder to lean on as she endured the _dolor exquisite_ of Jeunet and Cocteau. She thought that if Friday went well, she might invite him to her sanctuary of movie night so he could get some rest and she could nestle into his side. She fantasized about it so much that Thursday night, Herbert Cough found her snuggled against a vacant chair beside her, half-awake and mumbling sweet nothings. Embarrassed, she left, but she left feeling that she might have a trajectory for her relationship with Henry. Usually, Antigone struggled to envision her future. It came into clearer focus with the prospect of Henry in it. 

Friday came and, thankfully, Rudyard announced that he would be in the village archives, cleaning up the filing disaster below Village Hall. It gave Antigone time to ready for her date in peace. She stood in the mortuary alone, staring at her array of makeup. The thick, theatrical foundation she applied to corpses wasn’t quite suitably pale enough for her skin, but she did her best to apply it and a dusting of rouge in the hopes that she might look a little livelier or sophisticated. She just began to brush her hair when the sound of footsteps startled her.

“Get out of here, Rudyard!” she shouted.

“Easy. It’s just me,” Georgie said from the steps. She held up her hands as if to say ‘I come in peace’ before descending the rest. “I just wanted to see if you needed anything before I headed out for the night.”

“No, Georgie, I’m fine,” Antigone said, refusing to turn around to face her assistant. “Goodbye.”

“Antigone, are you okay?” 

“I’m _fine_ ,” Antigone insisted. “Go away, Georgie. I’ll see you in the morning-”

George took Antigone’s shoulders gently and turned Antigone to face her. She looked like she expected to see a bruise or something on Antigone’s face. Instead, she saw the gloppy, pasty mortuary makeup. Horror popped open Georgie’s mouth.

“Antigone, why-”

“Nothing! Nothing! Shut up!”

“What are you doin’?” Georgie asked, not letting go. She tilted her head to the side. “Are you goin’ somewhere?” 

“No! … Yes. Yes. I am. Go away, Georgie…!”

“Do you have a date?” 

“Don’t look at me like that!” Antigone whispered. Georgie’s grin only grew. “ _Yes_ , all right. I have a date.”

“About time,” Georgie said. “You deserve a night out.”

Antigone relaxed.

“You gonna tell me who it is?” Georgie asked.

“Not a chance,” Antigone said. “I don’t want to jinx it.”

“Fair enough,” Georgie said. “But you’re not goin’ out like that.”

Antigone looked down at herself. She still wore her work smock over her favorite black dress - the one without the hole in it. It was what she’d worn to her first date with Henry. And her second. 

“What’s wrong with my dress?”

“You’ve been wearin’ it all day,” Georgie said. “It smells like formaldehyde.”

“So? I’m sure he doesn’t mind.”

“Also, it’s not the dress, really,” said Georgie. “It’s the makeup. Don’t you have other cosmetics down here? Commercial stuff?”

“Yes, but those are for our important clients-”

“Antigone, look at me: you _are_ important.” She walked to the sink and picked up a clean cloth. Georgie wet it down and returned to Antigone. “Scrub your face and let me do your makeup if you won’t change your dress.” 

“Aren’t you going to ask me more about my date?”

“Maybe tomorrow, after it happens,” Georgie said. “Don’t wanna jinx it.”

She sat Antigone on one of the work stools and helped her wash off the thick foundation. Her pale skin was blemishless, so Georgie did Antigone’s eye makeup and lipstick in an Old Hollywood style that suited her haunting features. When she held up her camera phone to Antigone’s face like a mirror to show her, Antigone gasped. She admired herself from multiple angles and touched her brushed-back hair.

“Oh, Georgie-!”

“I’m great at makeovers,” Georgie said. “It helps when you have a quality canvas.”

Antigone blushed.

“Do you think he’ll recognize me? That he’ll like me?”

“He’d be an idiot not to,” Georgie said. 

“Do you think security at the yacht club will recognize me?” she asked, a little more shyly.

“The yacht club? Who’s your fancy gentleman?”

“I was banned from the yacht club, Georgie,” Antigone said. “What if somebody recognizes me and I get kicked out?”

“Just keep a low profile,” Georgie said. “Nobody can be fussed about the whole Seymour Proffitt thing anymore. It was a long time ago. And if anyone _does_ care, it’s not your fault.”

“Do you think one of my mother’s old dresses might fit?” Antigone asked. “I don’t want to get carried away, but this _does_ smell like formaldehyde... “

Georgie grinned. 

“To the attic!” she said and she and Antigone rushed upstairs to go through an old wardrobe filled with dresses from twenty years ago that Georgie was great at adding little touches to. They settled on a black dress with a sweetheart neckline that Georgie cut a daring slit into. They added some of the irises to Antigone’s hair for color and she left without realizing that in her rush to look good for her date, that she was now running fifteen minutes late. 

In Antigone’s defense, Henry did not notice that she was fifteen minutes late. This was only because he’d doggedly arrived half an hour early to the yacht club after rushing through his day’s appointments with unmatched zeal and hurry. Exhausted, he leaned against his hand. Antigone wouldn’t be here for another ten minutes and, so, he figured he could take a quick, eight-minute nap. He’d mastered the art of power-napping in strange places. The Piffling Yacht Club was not the weirdest place to fall asleep and eight minutes would surely rejuvenate him enough to wow Antigone with an arrangement of live orchids and love letter - _To Antigone: you say you are an Austen and not a Bronte, but to paraphrase a famous novel:_ _“Whatever our souls are made of, yours and mine are the same.” I dare you, goddess of death, to give life to these precious blooms. You always impress and surprise me. Adoringly, Henry_. He meant to sleep for eight minutes. 

He slept for nearly thirty.

Antigone entered the yacht club and was not immediately escorted off the premises. She supposed Georgie’s disguise of makeup hid her identity well enough. When she saw Henry, propped against his arm, asleep, with a living orchid for her, she paused. Asleep, he looked so peaceful. She hated to disturb him. The cares and worries from his week melted from his face and he murmured quietly to himself as he slept. She drew nearer. Maybe he’d been here for an hour, as she had been on their last date. She sat down across from him and accepted the waters the waiter brought with a thank you. Five minutes passed and she dared to read his love letter. Her heart bloomed in her chest at the “Wuthering Heights” quote - he must have been reading again! - and she wanted to wake him and tell him how similarly she felt. Antigone rested a hand against his arm.

Henry muttered in his sleep.

“Not now, Esther,” he mumbled. “Later.”

Antigone froze. She stared at her slumbering date - the man who she had hoped would be her boyfriend - and her stomach turned to ice. They’d been going out for three weeks and he had the audacity to murmur another woman’s name in his sleep. She knew it was soon to hope that he might dream of her as she dreamt of him, but it stung.

Maybe it was a fluke.

She shook him again, a little harder.

“Esther, please…”

Enraged, Antigone could have left. It would have been so simple. But she didn’t think of leaving. Instead, she seized her glass of ice water and tossed it in Henry’s face as she stood up. He startled with a yell.

“Unbelievable!” she spat. “You asked me out to the yacht club - to the most public place on Piffling - only to fall asleep waiting for me and to have the _nerve_ to murmur another woman’s name!”

“Antigone-”

“Did you tell her that whatever souls are made of, yours and hers are the same, too?”

“There is no other woman!”

At this point, other diners, including a too-curious Sid Marlowe and a mortified-looking Eric Chapman peered at them. Chapman at least had the decency to lower Sid’s camera. 

“I wasn’t born yesterday, Henry,” Antigone said icily. “I know Esther is a woman’s name.”

“Of course it’s a woman’s name- Antigone, please, Esther is a _bird_ -”

“I am well aware of that, Henry.” Antigone turned to leave. “Have a good night with Esther.”

“No.” Henry stood up and followed her as waiters began to gently ask them to leave anyway. Antigone wobbled down the steps on high heels. Henry caught up easily. “Esther is _literally_ a bird. She’s a macaw.”

“She’s a _what_?”

“Great, bloody bird from South America,” Henry said. “I bought her for Mum before I went to uni. I can prove it to you. Would you like to meet her?”

The people of Piffling were a strange bunch. Many were swingers or otherwise nonmonogamous. Henry’s explanation sounded ludicrous in a village full people who casually hooked up with each other frequently. Surely Esther was some neglected wife at home who had magnanimously given Henry a blessing to see other people. 

_Don’t be ridiculous,_ Antigone thought. _Do you really think Henry has_ time _to see more than one woman?_

She sucked in her cheeks. 

“Fine,” she said. In the back of her mind, she mentally prepared herself for meeting a housewife who would be eager to have Antigone join in on a menage-a-trois. She wanted to know she’d refuse such an offer, but Henry’s look of relieved hope made her think that maybe, if such an offer was extended, she wouldn’t be able to deny him. “I’ll meet Esther.”

A few short minutes later, she followed Henry up the steps of his house. She heard Esther before she saw her. A loud, merry squawk greeted them as Henry opened the door. He led Antigone into the living room where a large cage housed a glossy, blue-feathered macaw. She bobbed on her perch. Antigone clasped a hand over her mouth, both in awe and to hide the stream of curses that escaped her lips. Henry opened the cage and let Esther out. He spoke gently to her, whispers really, but Antigone would have sworn she heard him whisper, "This is Antigone. Be nice."

“She’s beautiful!” Antigone said. “May I pet her?”

“Be my guest,” Henry said. “She isn’t used to people though.”

“Neither am I,” Antigone said, smiling. “Does she speak?”

“Every now and again,” Esther said as Antigone touched a knuckle to her chest. “Just every now and again.”

“How clever!” she said. “I worried you might have a wife-”

Henry laughed.

“You and Esther are the only women in my life,” he said. “I quite like it that way.”

“Are we?” Antigone asked. “Do you see me as a woman in your life?”

Henry nodded. 

“By my estimate,” he said, “we’ve been dating for three weeks. Although time doesn’t mean much to me anymore. It all goes by so quickly.”

“That’s why we should seize every opportunity we’re given,” Antigone said. She looked at Henry. 

“Isn’t that the truth?” he said. He gently popped Esther back into her cage. “I have wasted so many opportunities…”

“In general?”

Henry sank onto the couch.

“I should have come home more when Mum was alive,” he said. “I should have asked you out when we were in school. I should have made time to see you when I first got back to Piffling-”

Antigone sat next to him. 

“We can berate ourselves for the chances we didn’t take,” she said, “or we can take new ones. It all leads to the same, inevitable end: why not make the most of it while we’re still alive?”

“There is one thing I want to do while we’re still alive.” Henry reached up and stroked Antigone’s hair. His fingers slid down the side of her face and cradled her jaw. “May I?”

Antigone breathed shallowly. Her thighs quivered with anticipation and though she whimpered, she very clearly said, “ _Please_ ” before Henry kissed her. His lips were warm on hers and his breath tasted of both toothpaste and strong coffee as the kiss went from chaste to deep. Antigone moaned against his mouth, writhing eagerly towards him. He released her hand to stroke her neck in the places that had made her mewl in the doctor’s office. She reached up and her painted nails gripped into his scalp. The kisses, eager, sloppy, greedy lasted until both Henry and Antigone were breathless. An eagerness gripped Antigone’s core - perhaps a little lower - and she thought for certain that Henry would ask her to sleep with him. She thought for certain that if he did ask, that she would say yes. Instead, he played with the irises in her hair and smiled. 

“I’d ask you to stay the night,” he confessed, “but I’m afraid I just want to sleep.”

Antigone’s face fell for a moment.

“I’m sorry,” Henry said. “Another night. I want to give you the night of passion you deserve-”

“We could still sleep together,” Antigone said. “Just sleep.”

“Do you mean that?”

“I do, yes,” Antigone said. “I would love nothing more than to sleep with you, even if that just means ‘just’ sleeping with you.” 

Henry smiled and led her into the bedroom. 

“I’m afraid I don’t keep ladies’ pajamas on hand,” he said as they stepped into the bedroom. 

Antigone looked around. The bedroom looked untouched. Even the bed itself was made with crisp, hospital corners. 

“Do you have a button-down shirt I could borrow?” she asked. “We’ll make due.”

Henry offered her a powder blue button-down, which she took into the bathroom to change into. She scrubbed her face clean of makeup and laid the irises on the counter. When Antigone emerged, Henry wore cotton pajamas that made him look softer and smaller and all the more kissable. She saw his eyes go wide at the sight of his shirt hanging off her thin frame and grazing the tops of her thighs.

“Oh, you really are going to make it difficult to just sleep,” he said, smiling. He looked exhausted, but happier than Antigone had seen him.

“I could say the same about you,” she admitted. “But… you need the rest, Henry. You do.”

“And you deserve the lovemaking.”

“Rest tonight,” she said. “Another night, after you’ve gotten some sleep, I’ll let you ravish me all you want.”

Henry turned down the covers with a laugh. They climbed into the bed.

“I don’t want to ravish you,” he told her. “I want to worship you. I want to bring you joy. I want-”

He yawned and wrapped his arm around Antigone’s waist. She startled, pleased at how nicely it fit around her middle. She scooted backward to press her back against his chest. Through their shirts, she could feel his heart beating. She might have even heard something - or maybe it was some pre-sleep dream - murmured under Henry's breath:

"I want to love you."

She could also feel him fall asleep, face buried in the crook of her shoulder. Antigone smiled and slowly drifted to sleep with the tide of Henry’s breathing. When she awoke, his arms were still around her. 


	9. Present: The "Mourning" After

The sun was already in the sky when Antigone slipped into Funn Funerals, half awake and smiling. Last night, she had spent the night with a man; this morning, he had still been there and they had shared breakfast in his home. It wasn’t the night of passion she dreamed of, but it had still been better than she could have ever expected. Her neck, sensitive, but hopefully not too badly blemished, was still achingly tender from where Henry kissed it as she watched the sunrise from his kitchen window. Even when the surge of endorphins faded away, she was sure all she’d have to do was discreetly graze her fingers against her carotid artery to imagine his lips wandering there. She did so now and shut her eyes blissfully as she leaned against the door. She wished Henry had been working at Chapman Community Hospital this morning. Maybe then, they could have walked together, hand-in-hand. Maybe next time he would be and they’d kiss goodbye on her porch. Instead, she’d careened out of poor Henry’s house when she realized that if the sun was up, so too would be her brother. The last thing she needed was his lecture or him to threaten to call Agatha Doyle on her to file a missing person’s report. 

“So, how was it?”

Antigone nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound of Georgie’s voice. A grin lit Georgie’s features and she swung her toolbox like an eager child. 

“How was what?” Antigone asked. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Riiiight. You come home in yesterday’s clothes, no shoes, and I’m supposed to believe you don’t know-”

“Damn!” Antigone looked at her feet. “I knew I was forgetting something-”

“So, who’s the lucky guy?” Georgie asked. “Or girl?”

“Oh, he wasn’t _that_ lucky, Georgie. Nothing happened.”

“Nothing? You were gone all night-”

“Yes, I know,” Antigone said. “But we were both just so tired-”

“It isn’t _Chapman_ , is it?”

“Christ, no!”

“Sorry, but I had to ask,” Georgie said.

Antigone followed Georgie into the kitchen. Georgie set her toolbox down and, alone there, she didn’t have to lower her voice when, as she sat at the kitchen table, she asked: “So, what can you tell me about your mystery man?”

Antigone hesitated. Then, touching her artery again with a sigh, she sank into the chair across from Georgie. She smiled, eyes closed.

“He’s wonderful, Georgie,” she murmured, prayer-like in reverence. “He makes the most wonderful toast.

“Great,” said Georgie. “I can’t wait to meet him.”

“You don’t understand,” Antigone said, her eyes flashed open and she scowled. “He has it down to a science.”

Morning had found her facing Henry, tucked into his chest and wrapped in his arms. Their legs twined together under the blankets. Faint sunshine crept into his window, painting shadows across his cheeks and closed eyes. Even so, when he awoke and smiled at her, he finally looked well-rested - something she’d wanted to see for what felt like lifetimes. He was so handsome that Antigone’s teeth ached from wanting. 

“Good morning,” she whispered hoarsely. 

“Good morning,” Henry said. He stroked her face gently. “May I?”

“You don’t have to ask every time,” Antigone said. “You can kiss me whenever you want. You only have to ask when you want to be supremely romantic or- or-”

“May I kiss you, then?” Henry asked.

Antigone nodded. He kissed her and if she hadn’t already been awake, she was awake now. She rolled toward him and off his arm. She tasted his sigh, though she wasn’t sure if it was from the kiss or relief that he could move his fingers again. 

“I haven’t done this in a long time,” Henry murmured when they pulled away. 

Moths fluttered in Antigone’s chest at the slightest spark of fire.

“Oh, no?” She clumsily slid her leg up his thigh and bit her lip. 

“No,” he said. “It’s terrible: a man should spend more than thirty minutes in his own bed a night.”

He grinned and he looked like he was thirty-six for the first time since adopting his post here. Antigone scowled at him and contemplated pushing him out of the bed as he laughed. He leaned in to kiss her again.

“I thought you meant-”

“I know,” he said. “Oh, I am sorry, Antigone. I’m at St. Spratt’s today, though, and I need all the energy I can get. Another night or morning, when I can give you everything you deserve as many times as you’d like…”

Antigone perked up and looked at him curiously. 

“As many times as I want…?”

Henry kissed her again. 

“As many times as I can,” he amended cheekily. “Somehow, I feel like if I even tried to give you as many orgasms as you wanted, we’d both end up in the hospital. I've read some of those romance novels you love. I remember some saucier scenes in "The Undertaker's Secret Baby"..."

Antigone blushed; to his credit, so did Henry.

“How dare you…!” Antigone smacked him with a pillow. When Henry stopped laughing and apologizing, she looked at him, satisfied and triumphant. She smiled. “Don’t tell anyone, but I’m going to hold you to that someday.”

“You’d better,” Henry said. “But for now, breakfast?”

They got up and while Antigone sipped coffee, staring out the window, Henry held her close and kissed her, his own coffee cup touched far less than he touched her. She sighed happily. This was not a side of Henry she had anticipated seeing. She’d hoped he was as passionate as his letters and speech indicated but he was always so tired. If this was what he was like with one night’s rest, she could only imagine what he might be like if he was always well-rested. She almost told him that she’d settle for one really spectacular orgasm here and now, standing in his kitchen, but, suddenly, the place where he had been kissing her neck was cold. Antigone spun around to see Henry reach into the toaster with a pair of bamboo tongs. He pulled the pieces of toast out and smoothed room temperature butter across the surface of each piece with such surgical precision, she thought he might have completely undone her there. The five seconds it took seemed to last for an eternity as she watched his muscular forearm and deft wrist at work. She let out a shaky breath. He offered her a plate.

“Sorry,” Henry said. “Habit.”

“There’s an optimal window for buttering toast,” Antigone said. “After eleven seconds, it turns into crumbly waste.”

“Does it?” Henry picked up his coffee mug. “I wouldn’t know. I never let mine sit longer than seven seconds. I’ve never had the time to.”

Antigone had never thought that she would ever want to propose to someone as badly as she wanted to propose to Henry this morning, but even she knew that was a bit forward for a third date. She settled for strawberry jam and coffee kisses. She could have stayed like this forever, but when a quarter past eight o’clock arrived, she realized Funn Funerals had opened fifteen minutes ago. She scooped up her pocketbook and kissed Henry once more before rushing out the door.

“Do you want-” he called from the doorway.

“We’ll do this again soon!” she called as she sprinted down the street. “I love you- damn, no, shut up!”

Henry leaned against the doorframe and watched her go, smiling. If Antigone hadn’t been in such a hurry, she would have noticed him holding her black high heels. Now, sitting in Funn Funerals with Georgie, she missed both her shoes and her boyfriend and she wished she could tell Georgie everything without worrying that it would get back to Rudyard and he’d try to finagle her relationship - hers! - into a deal with the morgue, so that they got the first pick of funerals. Sighing, Antigone put her head in her hands.

“He’s wonderful, Georgie,” she said. “He’s sensitive and well-read and funny and so passionate-”

“But nothing happened?”

“No.” Antigone sighed. “But he’s promised me a night of passion when we aren’t both so monumentally exhausted. I might have told him I love him. I- I don’t remember.”

“Sounds serious,” Georgie said. “You know if he hurts you - whoever he is - he’ll have to answer to me, right?”

“Better you than Rudyard.”

“Better Georgie than me _what_?” Rudyard asked as he shuffled into the kitchen. “What are you two gossiping about this early, anyway?”

“Nothing!” Antigone said quickly. 

“How were the archives?” Georgie asked. “You were gonna whip their filing into shape.”

“Oh, believe me,” Rudyard said, “I _did_ , but there are all sorts of missing files. We haven’t conducted a proper census since the nineteenth century from the looks of it. Since 1845, it seems like it’s just been a list of all the people the in-office mayor can think of off the top of his head. Last year’s census, for example, was just ten names of villagers written on a post-it note and labeled “census”. I really ought to speak to Mayor Desmond about it…”

“Nothing ever changes around here,” Antigone said with a sigh. “You’ll have as much a chance convincing the mayor to do a census as the mayor has of turning this village into a town.”

Mayor Desmond Desmond’s ambition to turn Piffling Vale into a town was infamous and a familiar, resigned hopelessness descended over the three employees of Funn Funerals. Antigone almost told Rudyard how hopeless his case was when the bell above the entrance door rang. Antigone, Rudyard, and Georgie scrambled into the main room to greet their potential customer. Standing in the front room was Henry, holding an old pair of black high heels. Antigone turned crimson as Georgie raised her eyebrows at her with a smirk. 

“You left these,” Henry said. “I wanted to return them.”

“Thank you.” Antigone took them from Henry’s hand gently. 

“And I wanted to see if we could make plans of some sort for-”

“Yes! I mean-”

Henry’s pager beeped. He checked it and sighed heavily.

“Victoria James has fallen into the duck pond again,” he said. “I have to go fish her out.”

“Oh.”

“I’m sorry,” Henry said, taking a few regretful steps towards the door he’d come in through. 

Antigone followed him to the steps.

“I’ll see you out,” she said.

“I’d like that,” he said. “I have an urgent matter I want to discuss with you.”

“Oh?”

Antigone followed him onto the porch. She looked at him curiously, wondering if something had come up since she left his house or if, perhaps, he wanted to make plans. Instead, he kissed her.

“I know you told me to shut up,” he said, “And I won’t say anything else about it if it embarrasses you, but you really should know: I love you, too. I wasn’t sure if you heard me say it last night. I'd wanted to make a more dramatic statement of my feelings for you - you really are someone special, Antigone and I wanted to tell you but, I’m not an Austenian hero or a Byronic hero, I’m just- I love you with every, exhausted fiber of my being and you need to know that before I waste any more time not telling you. Spending time with you makes me feel awake and alive in a way I haven't felt in years - maybe ever.”

Antigone bounced up on her tiptoes and kissed him again. She didn’t have as far as she might have wanted to go, being as tall as she was, but it was just enough of a gap that she got to tug the back of Henry’s neck as they kissed. Her eyes slipped shut happily and she pressed to him close, half-certain that two or three pairs of eyes could be watching them at any moment. _Let them stare_ , Antigone thought as she broke away to look at Henry. He smiled and then his pager went off again.

“Go,” Antigone said, releasing him. “We’ll make plans before the week is out.”

“If only we had more doctors,” Henry sighed. “Just one other one would be nice so I could spend a whole day with you…”

“Do you think if we managed to turn this village into a town NHS would send for more?” Antigone asked. 

Henry laughed. 

“That’ll be the day,” he said. “They’d have to. But everyone knows that if Mayor Desmond hasn’t turned Piffling Vale into a town yet…”

His pager beeped a third time. After a few more quick, kissing goodbyes, Henry took off in the direction of the duck pond and St. Spratt’s Hospital. Antigone watched him go and returned to the house, shoes in hand. 

“What was that about?” Rudyard huffed. “I cannot believe you would be so careless!”

“Careless?” Antigone echoed.

“You left your shoes at the clinic,” said Rudyard. “Wash them before you put them back on. Who knows what sort of contaminants might be on them-”

“I didn’t leave my shoes at the clinic! And if I did, what business of yours is it?”

“If you didn’t leave your shoes at the clinic, where on earth did Doctor Edgeware find them? Really, Antigone, you should be less careless with your belongings-”

“They’re my belongings! I can be as careless with them as I please!”

“Why would it please you to be careless with your belongings?”

“Bloody hell, Rudyard!” Georgie snapped. “She’s seein’ Doctor Edgeware. Even you can’t be that dense!”

“Of course she’s seeing Doctor Edgeware! We’re _all_ seeing Doctor Edgeware! He’s the only doctor on the island!” Rudyard threw his hands in the air. “That doesn’t mean-”

“Shut up, Rudyard!” Antigone growled. 

“Good for you,” Georgie said, giving Antigone a thumbs-up. “How long has this been going on?”

“Three weeks,” Antigone said. “Or twenty years. Really, it’s been a long time coming.”

“Congrats,” Georgie said. “He looks younger’n I’ve ever seen him. You two really must’ve gotten a lot of sleep last night.”

“It really was lovely.” Antigone sighed. “But his pager went off three times in the last five minutes… I don’t know when…”

She bit her lip as an idea began to form in her head if full.

“Rudyard,” she said, “when was the last census taken in Piffling Vale?”

“1845,” said Rudyard. “I don’t know what that has to do with Doctor Edgeware-”

“Wouldn’t it be the village archivist’s job to conduct an updated census?” Antigone asked. 

“Yes, I suppose it could be,” Rudyard said. “It involves a lot of record-keeping…”

“And you love that sort of thing,” said Antigone. “Think of the good you could do for this village! If our population has increased since the last census, we could get more funding for our school, better paving for our roads, more doctors in our hospitals…”

“There it is,” Georgie said. “Are you sure you can handle more than one doctor?”

Antigone blushed. 

“I think Henry could use a few extra hands,” Antigone mumbled, running a hand through her hair.

“I bet you do.” Georgie waggled her eyebrows. “Where would he put ‘em?”

“Will you quit? He’s just a very busy man and he needs a break. He deserves a break. And if we have a big enough population to support more doctors…”

“You’ll get the date night you deserve,” Georgie said. “Don’t worry. We’ll make sure everyone gets counted twice if it means you get your happy ending.”

“No, we wouldn’t,” Rudyard said. “That’s a new low of dishonesty for us.”

Both Georgie and Antigone looked at him and saw as the lightbulb in his head finally stuttered to life.

“Wait. Are you dating Doctor Edgeware?” Rudyard asked. “Antigone-”

Antigone steeled herself for a lecture. Instead, Rudyard smiled at her.

“Finally,” he said. “You know, she was obsessed with him when we were in school…”

“Jesus wept!” Antigone shoved her brother’s shoulder. “It was just a crush!”

“Well, it isn’t ‘just a crush’ anymore, is it?” Rudyard asked. “Does he know that if he hurts you he’ll have to fight Georgie in hand-to-hand combat?”

“I’m great at hand-to-hand combat,” Georgie said, flexing her arm to show off her biceps. 

“Will you help me with the census or not?” Antigone asked, looking at Rudyard very seriously. 

He smiled.

“I suppose it will also let me show Chapman how valuable I am to his precious village council,” Rudyard said. “Of course, I’ll help.”

If they were a more demonstrative family, Antigone would have hugged her brother. Instead she smiled at him broadly - a smile, the likes of which Rudyard had not seen on his sister’s face in a long time. 

“Thank you,” she said quietly. “Rudyard, thank you.”

The telephone rang. Rudyard rushed for it and answered.

“Now, look here,” he greeted in his brusque way. “What? Yes. All right. I’ll tell her.”

He hung up. 

“That was Doctor Edgeware,” Rudyard said. “Victoria James has been murdered by the ducks and he’s asked for you to specifically pick up the body, Antigone. Can’t imagine why. Usually, I go around to-”

Whatever else Rudyard said next was lost on Antigone as she darted downstairs to change into her work clothes and sensible shoes so she could dart out the door and across the island to her boyfriend’s first hospital and morgue. 


	10. Past: The Doctor is In

Doctor Henry Edgeware stood in the morgue, filling out the death certificate for his predecessor. Doctor Alastor Ridley had been a figure in Piffling Vale for as long as Henry could remember. When he was a child, Doctor Ridley had conducted all of his appointments - and everybody else’s on the island. When Henry’s mum had gotten sick last year and Henry had taken to commuting via ferry between his post in Jersey and Piffling to be nearer to her, Doctor Ridley had been there every step of the way, conferring with Henry like an equal and laughing at him when he announced that he’d petition NHS to place him at St. Spratt’s so he could be home all the time and help his mum, be there for her when things took a turn for the worse as they both knew things eventually would. 

“Henry.” Doctor Ridley put a veiny hand on Henry’s shoulder. “You don’t want this job. Piffling Vale is where a doctor’s career comes to die.”

“It will be better with two of us,” Henry said. He looked at Doctor Ridley, whose face had always seemed ancient in the way of the elder gods’. Even when Henry had been small, he’d always thought Doctor Ridley was a hundred years old.

It surprised him now, as he filled out the death certificate, to learn that Doctor Ridley had been sixty-two when he dropped dead of a heart-attack on Henry’s first day as Piffling Vale’s second doctor. If Henry believed in omens - and maybe he did, who knew, anymore? - he’d think that the job was cursed. Maybe it was what killed him in the end. It was a heavy blow to lose his childhood hero the same week he lost his mother and be forced into the hospital to work. As far as Henry knew, Piffling Vale was a small village and had always been a small village. It would always be a small village. Surely, he couldn’t have that many patients on his first day. 

It started when Jerry the baker came in with a case of food poisoning from trying a new recipe. That hadn’t been so bad - just a quick prescription for nausea medication and a stern talking-to about the dangers of undercooked eggs. 

“I know, mate,” he said queasily. “God, Henry, just because you went to medical school doesn’t mean-”

Fortunately, Jerry vomited then, before he could insult Henry’s professionalism or credentials.

“That’s Doctor Edgeware to you,” Henry said tightly. “Please. Take the Dramamine and call me in the morning if you’re still feeling this way.”

Jerry retched again and ran out of St. Spratt’s. Henry cleaned up the vomit and sterilized the floor. He just finished washing his hands when Mrs. Maxwell and Mrs. Tanner came in with their sons, both busted up pretty badly. From what Henry could glean from the argument between the two mothers, either Douglas and Martin had been innocently rough-housing or Douglas had shoved Martin out of a tree. Either way, Martin’s arm was broken and Henry had to perform surgery to fix it. Since it wasn’t a busy day, he was able to take Martin back for the surgery. Surely, when he was done, he could do a little first aid on Douglas. 

When he emerged with a groggy Martin and instructions for the painkillers that he’d need to take, the waiting room was full. Four children had chickenpox and their mothers and fathers ranged from those who believed vaccines caused excessive flatulence and those who wanted to give Doctor Ridley a piece of their minds because he’d been “too busy” to vaccinate their children. There was a woman a few feet away in active labor. Another woman’s face had swollen up like a balloon due to an allergic reaction. A man kept yelling that he was the only one with an appointment.

Technically, Rudyard Funn was not _wrong_. He was the only man with an appointment. However, delivering a baby always took precedent over handing over a corpse to the local undertaker. Henry delivered a healthy little boy within three hours, administered epinephrine for the swelling, and handed out medication for the fevers that went along with the chickenpox virus as well as apologies that Doctor Ridley had somehow missed those children in his vaccination rounds. At long last, he addressed Rudyard.

“Thank you for waiting,” he said.

“You didn’t give me much choice,” Rudyard said. “Why can’t everyone else make a bloody appointment?”

“Mrs. Davenport couldn’t schedule when she would go into labor,” Henry said with an exhausted shrug.

“But the rest?”

“Emergencies happen. This won’t be how it is every day,” Henry said. “If you’ll follow me.”

“I think I know where the morgue is by now,” Rudyard said, following Henry anyway. “At this time, I would like to express my profound condolences on the loss of both your mother and your mentor.”

Henry stiffened. That was perhaps the kindest thing Rudyard was capable of saying. He’d always been awkward and a little rude - something of a menace. In fact, Henry thought back to their conversation in the cemetery earlier this week and the way he brushed off Henry’s grief then and there and confessed that he didn’t contradict the rumors that Antigone was dead. He still needed to write her that thank you letter. 

“Thank you,” he said to her brother instead, tightly and tiredly. “I’m going to miss them.”

“Mm.”

They stepped into the morgue and Henry showed Rudyard the body. Rudyard took out a measuring kit and made some notes on a legal pad. A tiny mouse, barely more than a pinky, stuck its head out of Rudyard’s pocket. 

“You have a mouse in your jacket,” Henry said.

“Oh. Yes. That’s Madeline,” Rudyard said. “She’s excellent company.”

“She’s a mouse.”

“Animals are excellent conversationalists, Doctor,” Rudyard said. “You’re never lonely with one around.”

“Hmm.” Henry thought of Esther, who he’d fed guiltily and considered selling because he wouldn’t have time for a pet as a doctor. Maybe he’d keep her around. He liked the way she cocked her head as he spoke like she was listening. She was the last… well… the last intelligent being, if not person, to have been close with his mother. “Did you know Doctor Ridley was only sixty-two?”

“Was he?” Rudyard asked. “He always seemed… I don’t know… one hundred.”

“That’s what I thought,” Henry said. “It isn’t abnormal for a sixty-two-year-old man to have a heart attack, is it?”

“You’re the doctor,” said Rudyard. “Help me get him into the hearse.”

Henry and Rudyard hefted Doctor Ridley into the hearse. Henry’s chest ached, looking at his mentor stretched out in an ancient, barely-working vehicle. It wouldn’t surprise Henry one bit if the hearse was the next thing to die on Piffling.

“Do you need me to ride-along?” Henry asked. “Help you get his body into the mortuary?”

“God, no,” Rudyard said. “Our business is concluded, Doctor. Antigone will help me get Doctor Ridley downstairs.”

“How is your sister?” Henry asked. 

“Oh, you know…” Rudyard said vaguely. “She’s a bit of a recluse; refuses to go out in daylight. She reads too many erotic novels to fill whatever void she has in her life where most people put hobbies. But, all in all, she’s as good as can be expected.”

“Oh,” Henry said softly. It sounded like a sad existence, but a starkly Gothic one. He thought of “The Wide Sargasso Sea” and its passionate heroine, how she became the shut-in woman-in-the-attic of “Jane Eyre” infamy. His chest hurt at the image of a passionate, brilliant Antigone locked away in a mortuary. “You should tell her to come to see me some time-”

“She’s an adult, Doctor Edgeware. If she needs a medical appointment, she’ll make one herself. I’m not her secretary.”

With that, Rudyard Funn left and Henry learned to stop asking him too much about Antigone. Besides, once Rudyard left with Doctor Ridley’s body, Henry returned to the main floor to discover that one of his nurses quit and he had sixteen more people in his waiting room.

When he arrived home that night, he took extra care to feed Esther and to let her sit outside her cage. She perched on a kitchen chair, watching as Henry made a stir-fry and then shoveled veggies into his mouth like a starving man. Between bites, he told Esther about the foibles of the day and the despairs. He cried a little at the thought of his mum and of Doctor Ridley; he seethed when he thought of the nurse who quit; he daydreamed when he mentioned Antigone. When Henry thought Esther might not bite him, he stroked her glossy feathers gently. He hated to admit it, but Rudyard Funn was right about one thing: it was a great comfort to have an animal around the house.

“It has to get better someday, doesn’t it?” he asked Esther. “I mean… I’ll have to have a peaceful day once and a while.”

“Every now and again, Henry,” Esther agreed, bringing a wet smile to Henry’s face. “Just every now and again.”


	11. Present: Antigone's Plan

If Chapman Community Hospital was made of bright colors and the world’s most up-to-date equipment, St. Spratt’s was a step above an early twentieth-century sanatorium. The lights flickered dully as Antigone rushed into the hospital and looked around. To her surprise, Miss Scruple was working at the desk. She ignored the ringing telephone to look up at Antigone and smile. Miss Scruple had always been kind to Antigone in her odd, grandmotherly way and though Antigone was usually happy to see her, at least a little, today the only person she wanted to see was Henry. Still, it seemed rude to ignore her elderly neighbor and seeing as Antigone didn’t know where the morgue was, she might as well ask.

“Good morning, Miss Scruple,” she said, twisting the ends of her black hair between her fingers. She had to repeat herself, a little louder.

“Bless my soul!” Miss Scruple said, looking away from her ancient desktop computer. “Is that Antigone Funn, out and about in the daylight?”

“It is, yes,” Antigone said.

“Do you have an appointment, dear?” Miss Scruple asked, looking back at her monitor. “I would have thought it’d be more convenient for you to see Doctor Edgeware at Chapman Community, since it’s right across the street from you…”

“Oh, no, I don’t have an appointment,” Antigone said. “Henry called the funeral home-”

“Ooh… callin’ him ‘Henry’ now, are you dear?” Miss Scruple looked at her approvingly. A smile spread across her walnut-wrinkled face. “It’s about time. Didn’t I tell you there were plenty of men on Piffling who were pretty desperate?”

Antigone bit the inside of her cheek. Henry wasn’t seeing her because he was desperate, was he? No. No. He was desperate for a night’s rest and someone to talk to but not for… No. Henry was not using her. Her cheeks burned and she thought that she tasted blood in her mouth. 

“He’s been so happy this morning,” Miss Scruple continued. “I don’t need to know what you did for him, but the village owes you a debt. Actually, looking at you now, you look healthier than I’ve seen you - more color in your cheeks…”

“ _Doctor Edgeware_ called the funeral home,” she said. “I’m here to pick up Victoria James’ body.”

“Doesn’t your brother usually attend to these sorts of things?” she asked. “Or Georgie?”

“Yes, but-”

“Or Mr. Chapman. I see more of him in a day than I do of all you lot in a week…”

“Yes, Miss Scruple, but Henry specifically asked me to pick up Victoria James’ body. I brought the mo-ped and we’ll give her a proper service-”

“I still think about the service you all did for my Richard,” Miss Scruple said. “I’m sorry you couldn’t commune with his spirit, Antigone, but you did conjure that charming ghost… Detective Inspector something-or-other. Such a handsome ghost.”

It had been Chapman in facepaint, trying to ruin their seance, but Antigone wasn’t about to say that. 

“Yes, Miss Scruple, I’m sorry we couldn’t connect you to your brother,” she said. “Can you please direct me to the morgue?”

“Do you have an appointment?”

Antigone groaned. She was about to yell at an old woman when Henry briskly jaunted into the lobby. He set a folder down on the desk. 

“Miss Scruple, can you please file this copy of Miss James’ death certificate with village hall? When Antigone Funn gets here-” Henry stopped talking and smiled. “Never mind. I’ll escort her to the morgue myself.”

He offered Antigone his arm. She took it and walked at his side as Miss Scruple watched them go. The cat - or maybe macaw - was now out of the bag. By the time Miss Scruple got to Village Hall with the folder for Rudyard’s bloody archive, the entire village would know that Antigone and Henry were seeing each other. Maybe Antigone was fine with that - if Henry was. He waited until they made it inside the lift before kissing her. First, it was just the back of her hand, but before they reached the morgue, he leaned her against the handrail and kissed her like he hadn’t seen her in days instead of minutes. Antigone melted against him and imagined hitting the “Stop” button, his hand up her skirt, tracing patterns between her legs with his precise and perfect hands. He didn't do this, of course. Instead he buried his hands in her hair to pull her close. She moaned anyway. Her surprised sound elicited an enthusiastic one from Henry and the doors dinged open, creaking dangerously as they reached the morgue. Antigone pulled away and bit her lip. Her chest rose and fell quickly and she looked to see Henry looking equally flustered. 

“We can’t… in the morgue… desecration,” Antigone mumbled. Then, more clearly, she said, “We’re professionals.”

“We are,” Henry agreed. He let out a shaky breath and stepped off the lift. The morgue was brightly lit with gleaming freezers and a single table for inspection. It was occupied by the corpse of Piffling Vale’s most fashionable (and only) interior designer, whose fascination with the duckpond had always been something of a quirk. No one would have foreseen it’d be her undoing, except, perhaps the two people avoiding each other’s gazes in the morgue now. Victoria James’ body was covered with a modesty cloth. It reminded Antigone of home, of her mortuary. She imagined taking Henry there when there were no bodies downstairs and only the leather sofa she slept on when she didn’t want to haul her tired body up two flights of stairs and into a bed. Antigone swallowed hard. 

“I suppose you’ll want to move her body,” she said. “Have you contacted the family?”

“I have,” Henry said. “They brought her clothes by - some garish dress and her favorite jewelry. I thought it’d be more dignified if I allowed you to dress her.”

“That was thoughtful,” Antigone said. “Did they choose Funn Funerals, then?”

“I told them you were the best mortician for a mile around,” Henry admitted. “Which I would have said, even if we weren’t just snogging in a lift.”

Antigone laughed weakly.

“You’re incredibly sweet, but, Henry, you can’t show a bias-”

“Chapman gets enough bookings by virtue of having a hospital on his premises,” Henry said. “Let me help you when I can.”

“I don’t want to be underhanded about it,” she said softly. “That’s more of a Rudyard thing.”

“If the family had wanted to go with Chapman’s, I wouldn’t have stopped them,” Henry said. “You’re going to have to believe me.”

“I do, I do,” Antigone said. 

She walked over to Miss James’ body and looked at her patched bite wounds from the ducks. There were so many welts; it had to have been the internal bleeding that did her in. Antigone shook her head. She began to lower the modesty cloth and dress her in the fuchsia dress her family had picked out, with leopard spots. They must have thought it looked sophisticated. As she worked, she could feel Henry watching her work. 

“Don’t you have a hospital to run?” she half-teased.

“No,” Henry said wistfully. “I have two.”

“We really do need more doctors,” Antigone said. “What would you say if I told you I had a plan to get some?”

“I’d say your heart was in the right place,” said Henry. “But Mayor Desmond will never do the paperwork we’d need to submit to NHS.”

“I might have a man on the inside,” Antigone said. “Rudyard is the village archivist now and he _loves_ paperwork.”

“Be that as it may, we’d have to conduct a census to convince the government we need more than one doctor,” Henry said. “And I can’t imagine your brother successfully conducting census… can you?”

Antigone clawed at her hair. Her brother was the least popular man on the island. In her frenzy to get more doctors, she overlooked that little detail. People would sooner close their doors on Rudyard’s face than allow him to give them a short survey. 

“Damn.” Antigone’s eyes welled up and she blinked hard and focused on fastening Miss James’ faux-diamond earrings in place. “I was so looking forward to dating you in earnest.”

“Aren’t we already dating in earnest?” Henry asked. “I mean, I think we’re both too old for silly labels like ‘boyfriend’ and ‘girlfriend’ but…”

“I don’t want to compete with your miles-long workload,” Antigone confessed. “And after seeing how you were this morning after one night of rest, I can’t stop imagining a world where we have more doctors and you have that kind of energy every day…”

“Even if we got more doctors,” Henry said quietly, “what good will it do? I’ll have to train them all…”

“But _after_ the training, you’ll have free time again.” Antigone looked up. “You do remember what free time is, don’t you?”

“I have vague recollections. I wouldn’t know what to do with free time besides sleep.”

Antigone set down Miss James’ necklace. It clattered against the metal table as she glared over at Henry. Ten minutes ago, his hands had been knotted in her hair as they snogged like teenagers. And now he was saying he wouldn’t know what to do with free time? He’d said he loved her. And now he was saying he wouldn’t know what to do with free time? If looks could kill, it was very lucky Henry was in a morgue with a licensed mortician.

“Henry,” Antigone said with forced levelheadedness. “Do you desire me?”

“More than anything,” Henry said, “but I’m so tired that every time I feel a spark of desire, I’m forced to redirect that energy into surgeries and there’s no time-”

“If you had time, how would you like to use that energy for a night of raunchy, sensual, passionate-”

“Sleep?”

Antigone rolled her eyes and made sure Henry saw it. 

“Sex.”

Henry fell silent as his whole body drew up tall and erect. His face flushed as a smile broke through across his face.

“You did say you’d hold me to my promise,” he said at long last. “I’d like that very much.”

“Well,” Antigone’s voice dripped down with a sensuality she herself did not expect, “until we get more doctor’s on this bloody island, I don’t think you’ll have the stamina for the things I have in mind for you.”

“My God,” Henry murmured. Antigone could tell he was trying to conjure images from raunchy romance novels that he’d sworn this morning might land them both in the hospital. He seemed willing to take that risk and then reality smacked the smile off his face. “It’s a shame we’ll never get more doctors.”

“We _will_ ,” Antigone said. “You’re going to have to believe me. I have a plan.”

“If anyone is capable of turning this backward island around, it’s you,” Henry said. “But are you _sure_ sending your brother to conduct a census is the only way-”

“Maybe not,” Antigone admitted. “But nothing, not even my idiot brother or this absolutely dysfunctional trainwreck of an island is going to keep me from you.” 

They loaded Miss James onto Georgie’s mo-ped for transport and risked a quick kiss farewell before Antigone sped off in the direction of Funn Funerals. They had a booking to take care of and less than a day until the next Village Council meeting. Funn Funerals would be busy today - busier than ever - and nothing was going to keep Antigone from getting her happily-ever-after. 


	12. Present: A Village Hall Meeting

Village Council meetings in Piffling Vale had always been open to the public. However, Antigone Funn had never taken interest in a Village Council meeting until now. No one ever did. Usually, if she understood Rudyard rightly, the council members sat around a table and discussed the shoestring budget, planned parties, and discussed their deep desire for Piffling Vale to be a town, but never took any action on it. Only Rudyard presented consistent speeches; only Georgie and Chapman ever listened to him. The mayor, the reverend, and Lady Templar all seemed content to pine for Piffling’s next great soiree and to reassure one another that they were going to be a town someday very soon. They sounded like a circle of Hell made for those who had sinned by accumulating unpaid parking tickets or accidentally misfiling their taxes once and never writing in to correct their mistake. If Antigone didn’t have her proposal for the council, she would never, ever have wanted to go. As it was, her day had been busy, spent embalming Miss James and writing her speech and frothing at the mouth at the very prospect of public speaking. 

“You’ve done public speakin’ before,” Georgie reminded her as she ranted about her fears. “All you need to do is take a deep breath. You can imagine the council in their underwear if it helps.”

“Why would that help?” Antigone yelped. “Christ alive, the last thing I want to see while I’m giving an impassioned speech, inspired by my boyfriend, is my brother in his underwear!”

“Yeah, I guess that kills the mood,” said Georgie. “But just keep breathin’. That’s the important part.”

Antigone refused to let Georgie do her makeup again, but she brushed her hair and tucked one of the remaining, preserved irises into the pocket of her dress. With Rudyard and Georgie, she made her way across the square to Village Hall. On the way, they ran into Eric Chapman.

“Headed to the council meeting, then, Rudyard?” he asked, briskly keeping pace with Rudyard’s determined steps. 

“Of course. I have a very important proposal to make,” said Rudyard confidently. “And I want you to hear it.”

“Blimey,” Chapman said. Pink dusted the tips of his ears. “Rudyard, what sort of-”

“It’s actually _Antigone’s_ proposal,” Rudyard clarified. 

Chapman’s face fell for a split second, then, slyly, he looked over at Antigone. 

“Are we having any other members of the public join us tonight?” he asked. “Piffling’s chief medical officer, maybe?”

“Christ,” Antigone swore under her breath. She sighed. “Chapman, we both know that Henry has two hospitals to run. He doesn’t have time to waste on a village hall meeting.” 

“That’s a shame,” said Chapman.

“Leave her alone, Eric,” Georgie said, voice rising to a small threat. “I don’t see anybody harassin’ you over your crush.”

Chapman blanched. 

“I look forward to whatever you have to say, Antigone,” he said flatly. Then, to Rudyard, he said, “Mayor Desmond says you finally sorted the filing downstairs - congratulations!”

“What do you mean ‘finally’?” Rudyard asked defensively. He clutched his folder of notes to his chest. “As in I ‘finally’ accomplished something?”

“As in someone - _you_ \- finally are working to get this village in order,” Chapman said. “It wouldn’t surprise me if we became a town very soon…”

“That’s actually what we’re going to discuss tonight,” Rudyard said. “Antigone and I - Well. Antigone has a plan. I’m just going to be the arms and legs of this operation.”

“Looking forward to it!” Chapman said. 

Georgie peered over at him curiously and they went into the village hall and then took their seats in the meeting room. The other council members filed in, Mayor Desmond and Reverend Wavering in discussion with each other and Lady Templar eyeing Chapman greedily. Before she could speak to him, Chapman turned to Rudyard.

“Can you give me a hint about Antigone’s plan?” he asked. 

“You’ll hear about it with the rest of the council,” said Rudyard. “Give me one good reason why I ought to give you preferential treatment, Chapman.”

Before Chapman could do that, Mayor Desmond called for order. 

“Miss Crusoe, will you take the minutes?” he asked. 

“You got it, Mister Mayor.”

“Are we all here?” Desmond asked, looking around. 

“Yep. Mayor Desmond, that’s you. Eric Chapman, vice-chairman. Reverend Wavering. Lady Templar. Rudyard Funn. Me. And Antigone Funn has come to make a petition to the council.” 

“Antigone Funn?” Mayor Desmond echoed. He lowered his voice, “Are you sure it isn’t one of Rudyard’s more elaborate-”

“Your worship,” Antigone said, “I can assure you that I am here - really here - of my own volition. I have a proposition for the council and while I need my brother’s assistance for it, the idea is entirely my own.”

“Need your brother?” Lady Templar laughed. “When has anyone ever had need of that miserable weed of a man?”

“Rudyard is a brilliant archivist,” Chapman said. “And he reorganized our meeting minutes last week to allow _you_ enough time to read the comic-of-the-week posted on the refrigerator in the break room.”

“All with _out_ letting you have enough time to root around for sugared treats,” Rudyard boasted. 

“Oh, shut up,” Lady Templar snapped at him. Then, to Chapman, she said, “You used to have such discerning taste, Chappers.”

Chapman shrugged. 

“What’s on the agenda, Miss Crusoe?” Reverend Wavering asked. 

“Ooh, yes, the agenda!” Mayor Desmond said. “Thank you, Nigel…”

“Roll call… tea and biscuits… and Antigone Funn’s proposal,” Georgie said.

“Oh, well, if it’s in the minutes, I suppose we’ll have to let her…” the mayor said. “But first, tea and biscuits.”

Georgie poured everyone a cup and opened the chocolate wafers she’d bought from Agatha Doyle earlier in the week for the meeting. Everyone sat around, chatting pleasantly about their weeks, except the Funns. Rudyard was just quiet, half-listening as Chapman talked about the increasing popularity of non-funerary enterprises, and sipping his sweetened tea with relish ever few seconds. Antigone meanwhile was horrified.

“How long does this usually go on for?” she asked Georgie. 

Georgie shrugged. 

“They’ve gotten more efficient since Rudyard re-joined the council,” she said.

“Christ.”

“Are you absolutely sure you can’t give me a hint about your proposal?” Chapman asked Rudyard beside them. Rudyard sighed.

“For the last time, it isn’t _my_ proposal,” he said. “Antigone has an idea she wants to put forward to the council and it’s actually quite good…”

“Your sister’s ideas are usually good,” Chapman said. “You’ve called her a ‘genius’ before...”

“I called her an ‘evil genius’, there’s a nuanced difference,” Rudyard said. “You’re very clearly an only child.”

“I am, actually,” Chapman said. “What gave it away?”

“Morons,” Georgie muttered, shaking her head. “Look at them.”

Antigone did. She was used to seeing her brother and Chapman playing the parts of hated rivals. She hadn’t seen them sitting together on the council since Rudyard’s appointment as the village archivist. Something had definitely shifted, but she wasn’t entirely sure _what_. Antigone thought, maybe, the real reason her brother might have stared at Chapman’s for half an hour each day had less to do with “asserting dominance” than… something else. Rudyard tried to disguise a smile as a smirk behind his teacup.

“Oh my.”

“Eric’s in over his head,” Georgie said. “Rudyard’s first month on the council and he tried _everything_ he threw at me when he first came to Piffling… and then some.”

“Are they _dating_?”

Georgie shrugged.

“Eric isn’t dating Lady Templar anymore,” she said. “And Rudyard can tolerate Eric in thirty-minute doses I wouldn’t read _too_ much into it.”

“No, of course not,” Antigone lied. 

Maybe there was another reason Rudyard was so glad to see Antigone dating Henry besides hope that she would be happy. One less woman mooning over Eric Chapman would be a good thing in his books, whether he was dating Chapman or not. And if he was dating Chapman, if Antigone had her own love life to worry about, she couldn’t judge his or interfere. She smiled and drained the rest of her tea in one gulp. As everyone finished their tea and biscuits, the meeting began to fade back into a sense of order.

“Is that everything, then, Miss Crusoe?” Mayor Desmond asked. 

“Not quite, your worship,” Georgie said. “Antigone Funn still has her proposal for the council…”

“I don’t see Antigone Funn anywhere,” Mayor Desmond said. “Are you sure you don’t mean Rudyard-”

“Hello,” Antigone said.

Mayor Desmond startled. 

“Miss Funn! How long have you been seated there?” he asked.

“For the whole meeting,” said Antigone.

“You certainly are a quiet thing,” the mayor said approvingly. “Are you sure you have a proposal for us-”

“Oh, I am absolutely certain,” Antigone said. She stood up. “Ladies and gentlemen of the council-”

“You don’t have to stand,” Mayor Desmond said.

“Unless you want to,” Reverend Wavering interjected. “Whatever makes you uncomfortable, er, _comfortable,_ Antigone…”

Antigone remained standing and gripped the back of her chair. 

“Ladies and gentlemen of the council, we are all very aware of Mayor Desmond’s wish to make this village into a town. As… an interested citizen, I think it would be… It would be…” She bit her lip and looked at Georgie, trying not to imagine everyone in their underwear, which would only make her lose focus. “We need to conduct a census.”

“... Is that the whole speech?” Mayor Desmond asked.

Lady Templar clapped sarcastically. 

“Antigone is right,” Rudyard said. “We say we want to turn this village into a town, but we haven’t the slightest clue how close we are to doing that! This week, I reorganized the village archives and discovered that the last time Piffling Vale took a proper census was in 1845! Our last census was just ten names written down on a post-it note!”

“We don’t need a history lesson,” Lady Templar said. “We need a good reason for the pair of you to waste our time with a census.”

Eric Chapman stood up. 

“Antigone and Rudyard are both right,” he said. “If we don’t know how many people we have in this village - and if the government doesn’t know - how can we expect to have funding for the things we need? More funding for village events! A bigger school! Better roads! More doctors!”

He smiled over at Antigone reassuringly. She wondered how long he’d known. Usually, if anyone, especially Eric Chapman, their chief rival, knew anything about Antigone’s personal life, she’d want to sink into the ground. Instead, she smiled. _More doctors_. That’s why she was doing this. If Piffling Vale was big enough, Henry would get the help he needed and Antigone would get to see Henry. 

“We may not be a town yet,” Antigone said, voice steadier, “but we will never be if we don’t all stand up to be counted. If everyone participates in the census, we will get the funding and resources we need to continue our growth. If the death rates on Pifffling are any indication, we have a larger population than we may have ever realized.”

“Which is why I will be conducting Piffling Vale’s first true census since 1845,” Rudyard said. 

“And I will be helping him,” Chapman said. “You lot should all do your part and fill out the survey when Rudyard and I come to your doors.”

“What?” Rudyard asked. “Chapman…”

Georgie led the applause and though Lady Templar voted against a census, she was outvoted by the other members of the village council. They would be conducting their census. The mayor and reverend chattered excitedly with each other and Lady Templar slunk out. Georgie and Rudyard stood quietly off to the side, looking at a residential map of Piffling Vale and planning a route for Rudyard to take when conducting surveys. Antigone looked at Chapman.

“Why are you helping me?” she asked. 

“Look, it isn’t right that we have two hospitals and one doctor,” Chapman said. “Henry deserves a break or at least some help around the operating room.”

Antigone quirked her lips and shook her head.

“How long have you _known_ , Chapman?” she asked.

“Since you took over for Henry’s blind date,” he confessed. “Henry’s a passionate, intelligent man - you two deserve each other, but first, he needs a nap.”

“You don’t have to be so kind to us,” Antigone said. “Why are you being so kind to us?”

“Henry’s a friend,” Chapman said. “Besides, I may have my own reasons for helping…”

He looked over at Rudyard and smiled softly. Rudyard was gesturing broadly as he insisted he would not take a shortcut through Piffling’s small, but incredibly dense woods.

“Really, Chapman?” Antigone asked. “Are you sure? He’s… an acquired taste.”

“I’ve always liked a challenge,” Chapman said. 

“You do realize that if you hurt him, you’ll have to fight Georgie in hand-to-hand combat, don’t you?”

Chapman laughed uneasily.

“I can handle myself,” he said. “But I think someone is waiting for you…”

He nodded towards the door. Henry leaned against it, tired-looking but holding a bouquet of roses. 

“I’m sorry I missed your speech,” he said, offering them to her. “I’m sure it was glorious.”

“Only because my brother and Chapman backed me,” Antigone said, stroking the flower petals absently. “Apparently, they fancy each other.”

Henry looked inside the room as Rudyard explained his and Georgie’s plan to Chapman. A smile, small and exhausted, flitted onto his face.

“At least they don’t have to compete with the needs of two hospitals,” Henry murmured bitterly. “I’m taking a ‘lunch break’ to be here.”

“We’ll have more doctor’s soon,” Antigone said. “They agreed to the census.”

“They… agreed?” Henry, gripped by the folly of a second wind, laughed and picked Antigone up, spinning her around until his back protested and he had to set her down. Laughing, too, she leaned up and kissed him. “Antigone… if there are enough people to warrant a second doctor…”

“Yes?”

“I’m going to sleep for a full eight hours and then show you the night of your life,” Henry vowed. “Oh, Antigone…”

His pager went off. 

“When we get more doctors,” he said, “I’m throwing this thing into the ocean.”

“Don’t do that,” Antigone admonished. “But maybe we’ll find you one with a ‘silent’ mode.”

“You’re brilliant,” Henry murmured, kissing her again. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” Antigone touched his cheek. “Let’s grab something to eat at Chapman’s before your lunch break is over.”

“It ended five minutes ago,” Henry confessed. “I just… waited around a little longer to see you. But I’m at Chapman Community tonight. I could walk you home.”

Arm-in-arm, they walked under the stars towards the parallel funeral homes. Behind them, Rudyard and Chapman bickered and Georgie watched them all, a big smile on her face. 


	13. Present: How to Become a Town

The following day, Mayor Desmond gathered the village of Piffling Vale outside of Village Hall. Rudyard and Georgie and Chapman sat with the other council members on a makeshift stage facing the crowd. Antigone sat in the audience with Henry. He leaned his head on her shoulder, breathing evenly and deeply, which told her he’d fallen asleep. Other familiar faces joined the assemblage and after Georgie set up the microphone for Mayor Desmond a third time, he beamed out at the crowd. 

“My, what a turn-out!” he said. “This census thing might be a lot easier than I thought!”

Rudyard shook his head and looked at Chapman. Antigone watched them exchange looks and wondered what silent conversations they were having now and which she had missed in the last few months. She looked at her own boyfriend, asleep on her shoulder, and though she was loath to rob him of a few minutes’ sleep, she gently jostled him awake.

“They’re doing it now,” she whispered. 

He woke quietly, no jolting start, and as he sat up, took her hand in his. 

“As you all know, it has long been my dream to turn our dear little village into a dear little town,” Mayor Desmond said, “and now, with the help of councilmen Chapman and Funn, we will be taking steps towards achieving that dream. Beginning this afternoon, Mr. Chapman and Mr. Funn will visit every single one of your doors to give you a small survey for our records.”

“Can’t I request Mr. Chapman?” a voice called out. 

“Yeah!” said another. “I don’t want to answer questions for Rudyard Funn!”

Rudyard sprinted to the microphone.

“Now, look here!” he shouted into it. There was a horrid screech of feedback. “There is no need to be cruel while doing your basic, civic duty-”

“Rudyard and I will be coming to your doors  _ together _ ,” Chapman said, snatching the microphone away from Rudyard. “And you can talk to whichever of us makes you feel most comfortable.”

“Thank you, Eric, old boy,” Mayor Desmond said, taking the microphone back. “As Eric said, he and Rudyard will come to your doors together, ask you a few friendly questions, and make sure you’re counted as part of our community.”

Polite applause and light grousing commenced, as it often did when the village council set out to do anything. Antigone squeezed Henry’s hand. When the noise died away, Mayor Desmond spoke again.

“And you know, I’ve been thinking,” he said, “someone once told me that the key to being made a town was to have more amenities and a larger population. Thanks to Mr. Chapman, we’ve gotten more amenities than any village I’ve ever heard of, which means that I’d like to ask the rest of you to help with our population size. If you are pregnant, might be pregnant, or would like to be pregnant, don’t forget to make your appointment with Doctor Edgeware. We’ll be offering a cash prize to the mother who gives birth closest to midnight at the end of the week.”

“What?!” Henry was now very clearly awake. He looked around wildly, first at Antigone, then at the rest of the council. It was clear that he was not the only person just now apprised of this twist. “ _ Please, for the love of God, don’t come see me _ -!” 

His protests went unnoticed by most of Piffling Vale. Only Antigone noticed that as his shoulders shook, he was starting to cry. She rubbed his back gently. 

“Henry, I’m-”

“Why did you have to conduct a census?” he lamented. “Why did you have to be so easy to fall for?”

“Don’t blame me,” Antigone snapped. “Mayor Desmond added that stipulation and I  _ don’t think _ he consulted anyone about it.”

“I am going to have to do so many sonograms…”

“Yes, but you don’t have to do them alone,” Antigone said. “I may not be a medical professional, but I know my way around the human body. I can help you.”

“But if you help me and your brother and Eric are conducting the census, what are we going to do if someone  _ dies _ ?”

Antigone thought. 

“Well, I guess no one is allowed to die until the census has been taken at the end of the week,” she said. “And if I tell Death to take a holiday, he had better listen.”

Henry looked at her, admiration shining in his wet eyes. 

“You’re a wonder,” he murmured. “You’re the only person I’d be willing to do this for.”

Antigone kissed his cheek and rubbed his callused hands between her own. 

“I’ll make it worth your while,” she promised.

“I’ll hold you to that,” Henry teased. “We need to go to the hospital. With my luck, there’s already a queue around the block…”

Meanwhile, Rudyard, Chapman, and Georgie stared at each other in quiet disbelief. 

“Poor Doctor Edgeware,” Georgie said. “I don’t think this is what Antigone had in mind for the census.”

“I don’t think any of us had this in mind for the census,” Chapman said. “Crikey. We’re all in for a busy week.”

“Especially people who want to help increase the population,” Georgie joked. She eyed the mayor, giving Sid Marlowe and Jennifer Delacroix an interview. “You two goin’ to be okay if I rescue the mayor from the media?”

“We’ll be fine,” Rudyard said. He waved his employee towards her other employer and then looked at Chapman. “I just want it on the record that I’m doing this for Antigone.”

“Right. Understood,” Chapman said. “I’m doing it for Henry. Poor guy. Do you think he’ll manage?”

“He’d better,” Rudyard said. “That’s one body I don’t want Antigone to have to embalm.”

“Christ.”

Rudyard groaned and slid off the stage. 

“She’s fancied him for a long time,” he said. “Since we were kids.”

“Why didn’t she ask him out before now?” Chapman asked. 

“Oh, you know,” said Rudyard. “She’s had ridiculously drawn-out romantic fantasies in her head, paired with cripplingly low self-esteem and when faced with the perfect man, what on earth are you supposed to do with that?”

“What indeed?” murmured Chapman. He picked up the stack of forms. “We better get started. If we can finish early, maybe Henry won’t have to deliver so many babies.”

“Now, look here, Chapman, I know I won’t remember to say this at the end of the day and if you claim I said it at all, I will deny it…”

“Yes?”

“Thank you,” Rudyard said softly. “I know you’re doing it for Doctor Edgeware, but I do appreciate your help. Without you, I’m sure everyone would just slam the door on my face.”

“They still might,” Chapman said. “And it’d be their mistake.”

“But you’re doing this for Doctor Edgeware?”

“And you’re doing it for Antigone.”

“As long as we have that established,” Rudyard said, “I think we’re in good shape.” 

Just as Henry predicted, the line out the door of Chapman Community Hospital stretched across the road and onto Antigone’s front porch. Women of all ages and in varying shades of maternity queued up for a moment with the doctor. Antigone froze. 

“Having second thoughts?” Henry asked. 

“This is a normal day for you, isn’t it?” she asked. 

Henry smiled wryly. 

“Well, usually there’s a little bit more variety in what I’m seeing patients for. Though I might put you in charge of triage for things like head wounds and broken limbs.”

“Jesus.”

“Last chance to take refuge in your mortuary,” Henry said as they reached the steps of Chapman’s. 

Antigone shook her head.

“This is what couples do, isn’t it?” she asked. “Support each other?”

“Remind me to return the favor next time Funn Funerals is overrun with corpses,” he said. “By then, we’ll have more doctors.”

“It can’t be as bad as the clown funeral…”

“Oh, do you mean when you drunkenly passed out in Chapman’s mortuary after dragging your brother across the square with a broken foot-”

“Mistakes were made,” Antigone said waspishly. “Mostly by me. Is this really the time to talk about it?”

Henry sighed, but his mouth hinted at a smile. Antigone followed him into the clinic. Together, they worked out a system: Henry would see to the delicate obstetrician work; Antigone would answer other medical inquiries. That didn’t stop several women from mistaking Antigone for Henry’s secretary or nurse and giving her more details than she wanted about their pregnancies or lack thereof. 

“Mayor Desmond said Doctor Edgeware could get me pregnant,” said one pretty young woman with auburn hair and big, blue eyes as she approached the desk. 

Antigone scowled at her. It made the redhead shrink back.

“He absolutely  _ will not _ , as long as I have anything to say about it,” she growled. She looked at the other young women in the waiting room. “If any of you are here because the mayor falsely promised you that my boyfriend can get you pregnant, I suggest you leave  _ now _ before I give you a real reason to be in the hospital!”

Four women left the waiting room. 

Antigone smiled. This wasn’t so bad. 

By lunch, it was bad. Henry emerged from a delivery to switch into a clean lab coat, looking utterly exhausted. Antigone had kept the women in the waiting room in order, while performing minor surgeries, mostly involving suturing, against the reception desk. 

“They say birth is a miracle,” Henry said. “But it’s more of a miracle that you haven’t gone home.”

“I’m not going home until you go home,” Antigone said. “I got us into this mess-”

“You didn’t promise women obstetrics in front of the whole village,” Henry said. “Mrs. Samwell wanted me to induce her.”

“She’s only four months pregnant!”

“I know. I’m not a bad enough doctor to have done it.”

“I performed surgery on Bill’s hand,” Antigone said. “He cut it open with a bread knife.”

“That sounds like it’s in your wheelhouse,” Henry said encouragingly.

Antigone shrugged.

“It cleared out half of your waiting room to watch me do it,” she said. 

“We only have to do this until Friday,” Henry said hollowly. “Then, it will be back to my usual busy but frighteningly less brutal schedule.”

“Until we get more doctors,” Antigone said. “We  _ will _ get more doctors.”

As it was, they might not have had to wait until Friday. Rudyard and Chapman went door-to-door and by the twelfth house, they seemed to have established a routine, though Rudyard was none-too-fond of it. Chapman would do all of the talking and Rudyard did all of the writing. It made people more likely to answer questions and willingly be counted as part of the Piffling Vale populace. However, after the two-hundred and fifteenth house, the routine began to grate on Rudyard. 

It took a lot for a routine to bother Rudyard.

As Bill with a freshly bandaged hand and Tanya bade them goodbye, gushing over Eric and all but ignoring Rudyard, Rudyard muttered under his breath, mocking Tanya’s voice very badly:

“Oh, come in, Mr. Chapman! Would you like a cake, Mr. Chapman? Some tea? My firstborn?”

“What was that, Rudyard?” Chapman asked. He looked at Rudyard. 

“Every house we’ve gone to has been  _ so happy _ to have you,” Rudyard snapped. “Is there anyone in Piffling Vale, anyone at all, who hates you?”

“Just you,” Chapman said. 

“No,” said Rudyard.

“What do you mean ‘no’?” Chapman asked. “You’ve spent every waking moment since I’ve come to Piffling Vale trying to sabotage my business-”

“Well, maybe, I have had ridiculously drawn-out romantic fantasies in my head, paired with cripplingly low self-esteem, while faced with the perfect man. What am I supposed to do, then?”

“Oh.  _ Oh. _ Blimey." Chapman paused. "Rudyard…”

“Don’t laugh.”

“I suppose you could take a leaf out of your sister’s book,” Chapman said.

“And wait twenty years before asking you out?” Rudyard pinched the bridge of his nose. “Seems a bit overkill, really-”

And that was when Eric Chapman kissed him. 

“I won’t do that again until we finish this census,” Chapman teased. “We promised to do this for Henry and Antigone.”

“Right, and even if I get to kiss you again when all this is over,” said Rudyard, “I want the record to state that we are doing this for Henry and Antigone.”

Chapman grinned and they rushed through the rest of the houses as fast as they could. As afternoon darkened into night, they took their stack of census surveys to Village Hall and began to count them all, one by one. 

At that time in Chapman Community Hospital, Antigone had abandoned her post as a nurse-slash-receptionist, to aid Henry in the final delivery of the night. A very pregnant Mrs. Weatherford refused to deliver. She strained and groaned as Henry took to begging her to  _ please just give one last push _ . Mr. Weatherford shook his head.

“The mayor said that the baby had to be born at midnight,” he said. “We’re going to earn this cash prize.”

“Unbelievable!” Antigone snapped, looking up at the man. “You would make your wife and unborn child go through such excruciating pain for an unspecified cash prize?”

“Isn’t that what half your appointments have been about today?” Mr. Weatherford snapped. “It’s a  _ cash prize _ , Nurse Funn-”

“Jesus wept!” Antigone looked at Henry. “Can’t you perform a cesarean section?”

“At this point in the delivery?” he asked. “Only if it’s to save the life of the mother or child.”

“Henry…”

“I’m doing everything I can, Antigone…”

The door burst open. 

“Chapman and I counted everyone in the village!” Rudyard said as he and Eric Chapman tumbled into the room.

“Bloody hell, Rudyard! It said ‘Do Not Disturb’ on the door!” Chapman said. “Sorry, everyone, I tried to restrain him-”

“You finished the census?” Antigone asked. She stood up straight. “Well?”

“We are a village of nine-thousand-nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine people,” Rudyard said.

“Like Mayor Desmond always says,” Chapman said. “We are  _ very nearly _ a town. Towns generally have ten thousand people or more-”

Mrs. Weatherford’s screaming was replaced with the cries of her newborn baby girl. 

“Never mind,” said Chapman. “Ten thousand. Piffling Vale is about to officially become a town.”


	14. Present: A Quiet Interlude

That night, as Rudyard and Chapman rushed back to the village hall to prepare a report that they were  _ sure _ Mayor Desmond would be too busy to read and fill out the proper governmental forms, requesting a reallocation of funds - including enough NHS doctors to service a town of 10,000 - Antigone slipped her hand in Henry’s. 

“Come with me,” she said. “I have something to show you.”

“You aren’t holding me to our agreement before I’ve gotten a full night’s rest, are you, Miss Funn?” he teased. Somehow, even though his tone was light, Antigone could feel his exhaustion (or maybe her own) dragging her bones down. 

“No, but it’s a long walk home,” she said. “And you might want a shower and some rest.”

Henry smiled and put his hand to the small of her back. 

“Lead the way.”

Funn Funerals was dark when they arrived, still and unoccupied. Not even Madeline rustled in the skirting board, as she had probably ridden in Rudyard’s top pocket to Village Hall. The peace and calm were unusual for Funn Funerals but welcome. Antigone showed Henry into the washroom. 

“I’ll wash your clothes,” she said, “and mine.”

“You could join me,” he said. 

“But then we would both be-”

“Clean before bed,” Henry said.

“- Naked,” said Antigone.

“You and I see enough nudity in our lines of work,” Henry said.

“But it’d be different,” Antigone said. “This isn’t our work. You’re my boyfriend.”

“I like it when you say that. Somehow it doesn’t sound juvenile when you say it.” Henry paused. “If you’re not ready to-”

“I just… I always expected the first time I saw the man I loved naked to be magical,” Antigone said. “I didn’t expect it to be because we were both exhausted and covered in… fluids.”

“I have no idea what you expected to be doing when you first saw the man you loved naked,” Henry said. “But from what I understand, ‘exhausted and covered in fluids’ is par for the course.”

Antigone blushed. She ran a hand through her hair and thought about it. 

“I suppose it will save on water… and heating…”

And so they ended up in the shower, slippery and sudsy. The warm water washed over them in the cramped space, bringing relaxation to Antigone’s tense muscles. Embarrassed, she tried not to stare at Henry as her trembling hands soaped his chest. She thought about romance novels with steamy, sexy shower scenes and she realized that whoever had written them had never been in a real shower, which was small and awkward. Their wet bodies brushed against each other and they exchanged clumsy kisses, probably wasting more water and heat in one shower than they would have used in two. Still, it was more than a little nice for Henry to stand behind her and massage her scalp with shampoo. And it was much more than a little nice to steal glances at his body - the sharp cut of his hipbone, his flat stomach. She wondered if he caught her staring and realized she didn’t mind if he did, even if she was transparent in her planning for another night when they were both rested. 

It surprised her that after rinsing her hair, he kissed her shoulder and slid his hands up her body. 

“May I?” he asked.

Antigone wasn’t sure what he was asking for, but she would have agreed to anything at that moment. She nodded. He turned her around gently and admired her openly. His eyes gently trailed down her body. She couldn’t breathe. Maybe it was the humidity from the shower. 

“Beautiful,” Henry murmured. “Absolutely beautiful.”

“You can touch me, if you’d like,” Antigone said. 

Henry put a hand to her hip and drew her in closer. He smiled the kind of shiver-inducing smile Antigone was always reading about. 

Then the heating gave out and he yelped at the sudden cold of the water. Antigone reached to shut it off, apologizing profusely. She knew exactly who hadn’t paid the water bill and when Rudyard got back from Village Hall, she’d kill him. In the meantime, she ushered Henry out of the shower and into a towel. She picked up their dirty clothes and led him downstairs into the mortuary, where she began to wash their laundry in the sink. She did not blindfold Henry or drug him as she would anyone else who dared to enter her domain, instead, she led him down the stairs. She did not turn on the lights - she never did - and Henry did not complain, even as, wrapped in a towel, he tripped down the steps.

“Are you okay?” Antigone asked.

“My eyes will adjust,” Henry said. “I’m just tired.”

“Make yourself at home,” Antigone invited shyly. “I know it’s not much…”

“It’s everything to you, though,” Henry said. “Your life’s work is down here.”

“And much of my life, yes,” Antigone said. “Do you… like it?”

Henry was silent for a moment. Antigone held her breath. If he didn’t like her mortuary, she’d call this off. She would say she’d done Piffling Vale a favor by conducting the census and delivering a few babies and say goodbye to Henry. It would eventually be a fond memory when the scar healed that he did not like her mortuary-

“It suits you,” he said. “Though you deserve more up-to-date equipment.”

“We’ve had a difficult time of it,” Antigone said stiffly. “If you have a complaint to lodge, perhaps you should tell your friend Eric Chapman-”

“I’m not complaining,” Henry said, sitting on the sofa that often doubled as Antigone’s bed. “And if I am, it’s not about you. It’s about this village - this  _ town _ \- not realizing what amazing work you do with half the resources Eric has. Don’t tell him, but I’ve always thought you were the better mortician. Now that I know how  _ uneven _ the playing field is, I admire you all the more.”

Antigone began to wash their clothes in the sink. 

“It reminds me of St. Spratt’s,” he said quietly. “Chapman Community may have better equipment, but I have a special fondness for my first hospital.”

“There’s nothing like a first love,” Antigone agreed with quiet, approving passion. She rung Henry’s shirt out. “So you… you do like it?”

“Yes,” said Henry. “But I don’t understand why you led me down here tonight. Surely you could show me your mortuary in the morning…?”

“I thought you wanted to sleep,” Antigone said.

“Do you sleep down here?”

“Most nights, yes.”

“By choice?”

“If you’re going to judge-”

Henry laughed and stumbled to his feet. By the light of the embalming machine, he found Antigone and wrapped an arm around her waist. He kissed the side of her neck. 

“A woman after my own heart,” he said. “I can’t count the times I’ve slept in one of the hospitals.”

Antigone relaxed against him.

“Rudyard says it isn’t normal,” she said. “I don’t  _ care _ what he says, but do you think he’s right?”

“What is ‘normal’?” Henry asked. “Does it make you happy?”

Antigone thought for a moment. Slowly, she nodded.

“It did,” she said, “for a long time, yes, it made me very happy.”

“Has something changed?” 

“The other night, when I slept in your bed with you, my limbs didn’t cramp up from trying to fit on the sofa and my back didn’t hurt and I…” Antigone dropped her voice “... I felt safe. In your arms. It wasn’t so lonely. It was  _ nice _ .”

“We can still go back to mine,” Henry said. 

“Our clothes won’t be dry for hours.”

“Is there another bed you and I might sleep in?”

Antigone hesitated.

“I haven’t seen my bedroom in years,” she said.

“I know the feeling,” said Henry.

“No,” she said. “I haven’t seen it in literal years.”

“What a pair we make,” he said with the ache of a laugh in his voice. “We don’t have to go to your bedroom if you don’t want to. Your mortuary is lovely and we can get close on the couch…”

“Would you  _ like _ to see my bedroom?” Antigone asked.

“Would you?” Henry asked.

Antigone hemmed and hawed for a few moments, stammering and pulling out of Henry’s loose embrace to tear at her hair and face. Gently, he took his hands in hers. 

“Come to the couch, then,” he said. “I can fall asleep anywhere and I sleep more soundly with you close by, anyway.”

“Do you think it’s weird?” Antigone asked, following him to the sofa. “Or unhygienic or- or-”

“I think it shows how dedicated you are to your work,” Henry said, stretching out and tugging Antigone close. “But if you ever want to sleep in a real bed again, I don’t live  _ that _ far away. You could stay any night you wanted.”

“Sometimes you work nights,” she reminded him.

“I’ll give you a key,” said Henry. “And like you said: we’ll get more doctors soon.”

Antigone laid down beside Henry and tucked against his bare body. Warmth emanated from him - a sensation she’d never felt in the mortuary before. She loved her familiar dark and maybe wouldn’t forsake it every night for Henry’s bed, but she smiled at the thought of pillows supporting her aching spine and Henry’s scent clinging to the sheets and her hair and all over. 

“We will, won’t we?” she murmured. “I’d like that very much.”

In the morning, it was very lucky Georgie and Rudyard were tied up with the business of the census and its paperwork, otherwise they may have seen much more of Doctor Edgeware than either of them ever wanted to. By the time they returned to Funn Funerals with Chapman in tow, they were too exhausted to comment as they slumped into work and saw Henry and Antigone kissing in the kitchen in their freshly dried clothes, a plate of perfectly buttered toast stacked behind them and totally ignored. 

“I’m going to sleep for a week,” Rudyard lamented, grabbing a piece of toast. “Ten-thousand forms!”

His crowing broke Antigone and Henry’s liplock. 

“Like you weren’t sleepin’ when I got to Village Hall,” Georgie said, looking at him and Chapman in such a way that made Chapman flush faintly. Antigone smirked at her brother who averted his gaze to stare at his toast very seriously. 

“ _ Town _ Hall, Georgie,” he said. 

“We sent off the form to NHS this mornin’,” Georgie said, which broke Antigone and Henry’s liplock. 

“When will the other doctors be here?” Henry asked. 

Georgie shrugged. 

“At the start of next month,” Chapman said. “I made a few phone calls and they’re expediting the process.”

Henry seemed to do some mental calculations. Antigone watched, curious as he did. Then, nodding, he said, “A month is all I need.”

He did not elaborate. Antigone wondered how long it might take him to make a copy of his house key, but she didn’t want to ask him for it now, in front of her brother and assistant. 

“What did Mayor Desmond say when you told him we were finally a town?” Antigone asked.

“About that…” Rudyard cringed a little. “ _ Apparently _ , in order to be considered a town you need a charter, a council… and an economic hub. Population isn’t really an  _ official _ marker…”

“Does he think the census was a waste?” Henry asked. Alarm flashed in his eyes. “But you sent the paperwork to NHS…?”

“Oh, yeah,” Georgie said. “We sent all the right paperwork to London and they’ll be sendin’ more doctors and allocatin’ more funds for the school and the road and all that. So it wasn’t a  _ waste _ so much as… we’ve  _ been _ a town since Eric arrived.”

Everyone looked at Chapman. 

“Not since I  _ arrived _ ,” he said. “Since I expanded Chapman’s, really. It was the monorail that did it…”

“Mayor Desmond has been cryin’ under his desk all mornin’,” Georgie said. “All we gotta do is update the charter and change ‘village’ to ‘town’ and…”

“The mayor is never going to read the charter,” Antigone lamented. “He’s usually kept very busy.”

“What does it matter?” Henry asked. “We’re getting more doctors. Antigone… I don’t know how to thank you…”

“I thought we agreed…” she whispered. 

“I was planning on that whether or not we got more doctors,” Henry whispered back. “It’s just going to be easier to find time…”

Rudyard cleared his throat. 

“Actually,” he said. “As vice-chairman of the council, Chapman has the authority to sign the charter if the mayor is  _ indisposed _ . I found the paperwork this morning-”

“Rudyard was brilliant,” Chapman said. “He knew exactly where the charter was and where I would need to make the amendments-”

Antigone cleared her throat. 

“So we’re a town and the doctors are on their way,” she said. “We just have one more month of this madness.”

“We’re hosting an ‘official’ signature day of the charter,” Chapman said. “The mayor will present the Weatherfords with their cash prize-”

“Twenty pounds,” said Georgie. 

“- and host a celebration for the whole town. I’m planning it for a week from today,” finished Chapman. “It might make for a nice afternoon date.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Chapman,” Rudyard said. “You and I will be working the event. Even if Georgie found us  _ cuddling _ in the archives this morning, we’ll be too busy to go on a  _ date _ at the celebration-”

But Chapman caught Henry’s eye and nodded towards Antigone. Henry caught the glance and then smiled over at Antigone. 

“I’ll make sure to get a full night’s rest,” he promised. “It might be the only quiet we get until the other doctors arrive.”

“It’s a date then,” Antigone said. 

Chapman smiled at them. Then, smiling at Rudyard, a different, shyer smile, he said, “I’m going back to my place to get some rest, but I’ll see you tonight?”

“One cup of coffee,” Rudyard agreed. “Maybe two.”

“Enjoy yourselves!”

Chapman stepped out of Funn Funerals and across the square. Antigone and Georgie exchanged wry smiles. 

“I give them two weeks before they start bickerin’ again,” Georgie said. 

“I give them two cups of coffee,” said Antigone. 

“Hey!” Rudyard protested around a mouth of toast. He swallowed hard. “I didn’t make bets on you and Doctor Edgeware!”

“I think, considering the circumstances,” Antigone said, “you could call him Henry…”

“No,” Henry said. “I’m ready to take a lot of steps forward with you, Antigone, but I draw the line at Rudyard calling me by my first name.”

“That’s… fair,” Antigone said. 

She offered Henry the plate of toast. He took one off the top. 

“I better get across the road,” he said. “There’s already a queue forming at Chapman Community…”

“You won’t forget our date next week?” Antigone asked.

“Never,” he said. “But maybe we can schedule a lunch appointment or two before?”

Antigone nodded eagerly. 

“Just lunch,” she promised. “Say, Wednesday and Friday at noon?”

“I’ll write it in pen,” said Henry, kissing her. Then, he shoved the piece of toast in his mouth and jaunted across the square. 

“Did Doctor Edgeware spend the night?” Rudyard asked. 

“Shut up, Rudyard,” Antigone said. “You’re the one who was cuddling Chapman on the floor of the village archives!”

“It would have been cute if it wasn’t… you know… Rudyard and Eric,” Georgie said. “It’s always the last one you expect, though, innit?”

Antigone poured herself another cup of tea and wrapped her hands around it.

“Maybe,” she said, “but people can surprise you and maybe… maybe we end up with the person we deserve in the end.” 

“What’s  _ that _ supposed to mean?” Rudyard snapped, reaching for more toast. 

Antigone smirked at him over the lip of her teacup. 

“Maybe you’ll find out on your date with Chapman,” she teased. “I hope you do.”

With that, she descended the steps back into her mortuary and fell asleep again on the sofa. It still smelled of leather and formaldehyde, but she would have sworn it bore traces of soap and Henry before she drifted off. 


	15. Present: The Reality of Romance

No week of Antigone Funn’s life had ever passed more slowly. Monday and Tuesday dragged on as work picked back up and the _town_ of Piffling Vale dropped back down to nine-thousand-nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine residents due to a freak windmill accident. Antigone would have thought the distraction of Victoria James’ Tuesday funeral and, now, Donald Keyes’ impending Thursday service would soothe her. When she’d gone to pick up Mr. Keyes’ body from the morgue, she found Henry shoveling granola into his mouth from behind a copy of “Scandalliances”. The sight of her magnum opus made Antigone’s stomach flip. If Henry knew that the lurid sex scenes had been penned by her - with the help of Reverend Wavering - he would surely call off their date at the end of the week. They were too raunchy and involved too many real cases of inappropriate liaisons between members of the community. Suddenly, Antigone wracked her brain for any scenes involving a certain doctor… All that came to mind was a woman who was far to titillated by a pelvic exam, more infatuated with the speculum than its wielder. Antigone relaxed, but only a little. She remembered when Reverend Wavering proposed the idea.

“A speculum?” Antigone asked uncomfortably. “Why not the doctor?”

“Well, maybe his heart just wasn’t in it,” said Reverend Wavering. “Or maybe he was a serial womanizer and this was just a normal day at the office for him.”

“That’s not sexy!” Antigone had protested. “What if the doctor is the object of the woman’s desire, but because he won’t touch her, she fantasizes that the instrument inside her is him?”

“Ooh…” Reverend Wavering wrote something down on the napkin. 

“He has to be handsome,” Antigone continued. “Maybe with a gentle voice and callused hands… Respectably handsome with kind eyes that notice everything…”

“But does he notice the woman’s excitement at his touch?” asked the reverend. 

“He does and has a pang of longing,” Antigone suggested. “He has forgotten what it is to inspire such excitement and for a moment, he considers breaking the Hippocratic oath-”

“But then he remembers that the woman’s husband is the village’s champion heavyweight boxer,” said Reverend Wavering. “And he’s far too tired to fight a man for a brief rendezvous.”

“Are all doctors tired?” Antigone had asked. Reverend Wavering shrugged. 

“Our last two have been, so I imagine so,” he said. “But then again, I could be wrong about that.”

Antigone sipped her decaf coffee pensively. 

“What if,” said the reverend, “the doctor notices the woman’s excitement and he continues the exam, but all the while he’s thinking of someone else - a woman he loved and lost… or maybe he never had her, after all…”

“Oh, yes,” Antigone began to type. “And we could switch between their respective fantasies-”

“The lost love should be stunning,” Reverend Wavering said. “A real Hedy Lamarr: a hauntingly beautiful, but incredibly smart…”

“Oh yes-”

Without realizing it at the time, Antigone had written down Henry’s fantasies of her in her novel. She wondered if he knew, if he recognized himself in the pages - Antigone’s tender description of his weary good looks - or her - his idealized her, unattainable and beautiful. She had never seen herself that way, but a year ago, Henry _had_. He had seen her and in confession told Reverend Wavering that he thought she was the island’s Hedy Lamarr: the world’s most beautiful woman and brilliant beyond compare. She’d written his fantasy, imagined what such a man would want of such a woman and how unsatisfying it was to touch another woman. The longing of the parallel fantasies had been one of the more introspective chapters and Antigone had fought Reverend Wavering to keep it in, since the two featured characters never “did it”, but rather used each other as a way to escape into their own fantasies. 

She suddenly could imagine Friday night and she couldn’t breathe. His hands would work her open like a ripened pomegranate and he’d suck on her for the seedy pearls of lust - oh, she remembered the metaphors she’d written with such clarity now - and relish the sweetness until his wet lips claimed hers and-

“Antigone!” Henry tried to hide the book under some paperwork. “I didn’t hear the elevator. I was… Reading some medical files…”

“Were you reading “Scandalliances”?” she asked. 

“I’m… brushing up for Friday,” he confessed. “I’m reading at work and sleeping at home. It’s a nice change of pace.”

Antigone blushed.

“Did you read the chapter in the hospital?” she asked.

“I… Yes.”

“What did you think?”

“I can’t imagine any woman fantasizing about anything with a speculum inside her,” Henry said. “But I do like the parallel fantasy lives of doctor and patient. It’s… funny, actually. I used to watch a lot of Old Hollywood films while I was studying. I always did quite like Hedy Lamarr. I suppose I’ve always liked my women beautiful and brilliant and fiercely independent.”

Antigone averted her gaze. Henry rose and crossed to her.

“I’m here to pick up Mr. Keyes,” she said. “That’s why you called, isn’t it?”

“It is,” he said, “but I wanted a moment alone with you. I’m… I’m glad you came instead of your brother. He isn’t here, is he?”

“No,” Antigone said. “He and Chapman are at the vicarage, arguing about who is scheduled to do a funeral tomorrow at two.”

“Ah,” Henry said. “Good. I have a surprise for you.”

“Oh?”

Henry reached into the pocket of his lab coat. 

“I couldn’t wait until Wednesday,” he said, extending a key with a pendant chain. “I wanted to give you your key to my place… in case you wanted to get away for a quiet night before the week was out.”

“Henry… thank you…”

“Read the keychain.”

“It’s not a quote from “Scandalliances”, is it?” she asked.

“No! No. But if you would rather-”

“No! Shut up! Christ!”

Henry smiled indulgently before again watching her with a look of expectation. Antigone looked at the inscription on the keychain.

“ _A man does not recover from such a devotion of the heart to such a woman!_ ” Antigone read. “ _Persuasion_. That’s Captain Wentworth…”

“Yes,” Henry said. “Flip it over.”

“ _May I never recover from you._ ” Antigone looked at him quizzically. That wasn’t how the line continued, she looked down and continued reading. “ _Yours always, Henry_.”

The soft “oh” that escaped her lips was enough approval to bring a smile to Henry’s face. 

“I told you there were other quotes I wanted to use,” he said, “but sometimes, I think we say what’s on our hearts better than even the best authors could.”

Antigone kissed him then and nearly forgot that she was here to pick up a body. When she remembered, she let Henry ride along with her on Georgie’s mo-ped as they hauled the body back to the mortuary. 

The next few days - lunch dates included - were filled with such exquisite longing. Antigone sat across from Henry at Chapman’s cafe and though they ate their food at an alarming speed, they spent the rest of the hour talking and holding hands and tangling their feet together under the table. The key burned a hole in her pocket, but she refused to use it. The longer she waited, the more she wanted him. She’d reread and reread her passage of “Scandalliances” about the handsome doctor and his lost love each night and her mind hummed with possibility. She spent her days embalming and the one night she went to the cinema, she had trouble reading the subtitles from distraction. Herbert Cough made a comment, wondering if she’d liked the film.

“Cinema isn’t meant to be enjoyed,” she reminded him. “It is meant to be endured.”

She wondered if Henry would share her philosophy if he had a fondness for Old Hollywood films as the soundtrack to reading medical journals. She’d have to ask him. After Friday, of course. 

When Friday morning finally came, Rudyard and Georgie and Chapman and Jennifer Delacroix and Madeline and everyone else on the whole island gathered in the village - now _town_ \- square. Unseen, Antigone raced in the opposite direction towards Henry Edgeware’s house. Henry’s house had a lovely view of the sea, one Antigone was sure that he never got to enjoy, and was marked in the neighborhood for its lack of decor and gardening. When Mrs. Edgeware had lived here, there had been a vegetable garden that the children of Piffling would try to steal into and snatch tomatoes from. Those were long gone. Still, it was a charming little cottage, much smaller than Funn Funerals, if as ill-kept. Antigone felt at home as she climbed the steps and unlocked the door with her key. The house smelled like coffee and old newspapers. Esther peered out from her cage at Antigone. 

“Is he awake?” she asked.

Esther squawked and Antigone didn’t understand it. But, out of caution and modesty, she covered Esther’s cage with a nearby blanket. Then, quietly, she tiptoed into Henry’s bedroom. She expected to find him asleep. Instead, she found him drawing the blinds closed and turning on battery-operated candles. She watched him for a silent moment as he seemed to run through a mental checklist.

“Henry…” she said softly. 

He turned around, smiling. He set down the battery-operated tea-light.

“What’s all this, then?” she asked, gesturing.

“Mood lighting,” he said. “I wanted to put up real candles, but I started imagining what we might do and… Well… It just seemed like an unnecessary risk.”

“Did you get a full eight hours of sleep last night?” Antigone asked.

Henry nodded. 

“I took the batteries out of my pager and put them into one of the candles.”

“Good.” Antigone closed the gap between them. She reached up to stroke his face. “May I?”

With his consent, she kissed him passionately and walked him backward toward the bed. Henry’s knees buckled and he sat on the mattress. His hands slid down Antigone’s back and he pulled her into his lap. Rocking gently under her, he elicited a few excited whimpers from her without much effort at all. His hands slid up her body and he touched her breasts gently. That was when Antigone broke the kiss.

“I’ve never done this before,” she confessed. “I mean, I’ve read about it in books, but I’ve never… Not with anyone… I’ve always wanted… well not _always_ …” 

“Are you scared?” Henry asked. 

“What if I’m bad at it?” Antigone asked. “The heroines I’ve read about - even the virginal ones - always satisfy their partner and they do everything right and-”

“That’s a lot of pressure,” Henry said. “I’m satisfied just to have you here.”

“That isn’t what I mean.”

“I know.” Henry seemed to think. “Would you like the clinical facts?”

“I just want to do it right,” Antigone said. “I don’t want to disappoint you.”

“You wouldn’t,” Henry said. “Real sex is… it isn’t like romance novels. It’s messy and funny and it isn’t a _skill_ … it’s a shared experience. A conversation.”

“Will it hurt?” Antigone asked. “In books, when it’s the heroine’s first time there’s always a little pain…”

Henry slid his hand between her legs and up her skirt. He massaged her through her underwear. Antigone twitched and moaned, arching against his hand.

“Does this hurt?” he asked. 

“N-no,” she admitted through heavy breaths. 

“Forget your plans for now,” he said. “We’ll explore them all in time, but this first time… let me.”

“I trust you,” Antigone said. “Should we- Do you have-”

Her head lolled back and she spotted a box of condoms sitting on the nightstand, unopened, but ready for use. 

“I did your medical history,” Henry said, “so I knew the responsibility of birth control fell on my shoulders.”

"One day-” Antigone rocked against his hand “- you won’t have to be my gynecologist.”

“Thank God,” Henry kissed her deeply, steadying her head with his free hand as his deft fingers worked her underwear down her hips and drew patterns between her legs that made Antigone moan. 

True to his word, Henry stroked and kissed and sucked until Antigone was sure the whole town had heard her uninhibited delight. He taught her gently how to roll a condom properly and was patient as she breathlessly took in the sight and feel of him. It was only when she was completely comfortable and ready that he made love to her and, true to his word, he did not hurt her. Antigone couldn’t recall ever feeling such a surge of release in her life. Boneless when through, she melted into his chest as the rolled onto the mattress. She hadn’t expected her body to feel so electric at his touch when done. Every nerve in her body was crying out with thanks that she had finally known what it was not only to love but to make love. Henry looked fit to fall asleep again, but even as his eyes fluttered shut, he smiled and spoke. 

“It’ll only get better from here,” he told her. “And here was pretty amazing for me. For you?”

Antigone moaned and stretched.

“You said it wasn’t like the romance novels,” she said. 

“Do romance heroines get leg cramps?” he asked her.

Antigone laughed, a little embarrassed. 

“I’m sorry about that,” she said. “Did I kick you too hard?”

“It’s fine,” he said. “Did the pillow help?”

She nodded. 

“Thank you.”

“Anything you need,” he promised her, kissing her sweat-damp forehead. “Never be afraid to ask.”

Antigone sighed and snuggled closer to Henry. 

“Okay,” she said. “Tell me a secret.”

“Hmm?”

“This is how pillow talk works, isn’t it?” she asked. “After the hero and heroine make passionate love, they tell each other their deepest, darkest secrets.”

“I don’t have any deep, dark secrets,” Henry said. “Regrets, hopes, silly things no one has ever cared to know…”

“Tell me any of them,” Antigone said. “Whatever you want.”

“Okay,” he said. He paused for a moment, “I think the doctor in “Scandalliances” was based on me.”

“Oh no…”

“It sounds ridiculous. I know it does,” he said. “But I’ve never been interested in a patient - especially during a pelvic exam - until a brilliant, beautiful woman came in and asked me to do seventeen years’ worth of physicals for her. I used to fantasize about her - not during work, I think Miss Blimp took some liberties - but I used to tell Esther about it. And the reverend, I suppose, during confession.”

“Really?”

“Reality is better than fantasy,” he assured her. “I like that she _isn’t_ Hedy Lamarr and that she scowls at me when I say stupid things and that she isn’t always perfectly composed and that she has a macabre sense of humor…”

“Henry,” Antigone said, “can I tell you a secret?”

“Hmm?”

“I _am_ Octavia Blimp,” she said. “I didn’t realize I was writing about you in that chapter until- Why are you laughing?”

“Because I’m not surprised,” Henry said. “I’m just… relieved. I thought I was going crazy, maybe fixating on today…”

“You won’t tell anyone else?”

“Boyfriend-girlfriend confidentiality,” he promised her. “It’s like doctor-patient confidentiality, except that I will take your secrets with me to the grave and never share them with a specialist.”

“Tell me another secret,” Antigone said. “Maybe a hope.”

“I hope,” Henry said, “that when we get the NHS doctors, you and I can take a holiday. Anywhere in the world you want to go. I think between the two of us, we have a lifetime’s supply of leave time.” 

“France,” Antigone said instantly. “Some small village outside of Paris, so we can go and see the sights, but then go… go home and we can read and eat well and rest and watch the sunrise over fields of lavender…”

“You’ve thought about this,” Henry said. “France is so close… And I’ve never been.”

“Me either. I’ve never been anywhere.”

“We’ll change that,” Henry assured her. “Once the NHS doctors are here.”

“What about Esther?” Antigone asked. “Would we take her?”

Henry frowned. Antigone held her breath. She did like Henry’s parrot but somehow, a romantic getaway became distinctly less romantic when you brought a macaw along. 

“I could… ask… someone to watch her…”

“You know,” Antigone said, “Rudyard has a knack for animals that he doesn’t for people.”

“It’s a shame he’s so squeamish,” Henry said. “Piffling Vale could use a veterinarian.”

Antigone laughed throatily and leaned over to kiss Henry. She hummed against his lips. His eyes opened as she broke the kiss. 

“You can’t be ready to go again,” he teased. 

“I’ll wait for you,” she said. “I just like kissing you. I think we’ve gotten better at it.”

“I’m glad you said it,” Henry teased. “But kissing isn’t a skill. It’s-”

“- a conversation, yes,” Antigone finished. 

“And you are an _excellent_ conversationalist,” Henry said, kissing her again. 

Antigone would be sure to use her key much more often now. 


	16. Present: A Logical Conclusion

No one at Funn Funerals or who passed by the hospital saw Antigone Funn or Doctor Henry Edgeware for the rest of the day. It wasn’t until late the next morning that they walked together to the town square, leaning on each other sleepily. Antigone’s thighs ached sweetly and she wondered where Henry had forsaken comfort for her pleasure. He didn’t complain. He only hugged her tighter to his side. Too many of Piffling Vale’s residents were recovering from their own celebrations to notice them, but those who did thought things like “Good for them”. One reverend said aloud to his mayor of a husband, as they nursed matching hangovers and stared blearily out the window: “Do you think Antigone Funn looks terribly like Hedy Lamarr? I’d never thought so, but now I’m not so sure…” 

Antigone wondered if those who saw them knew what they had done yesterday, could count by the number of teeth showing in her smile just how many times she and Henry had made love. She wondered if they looked her over for the carefully concealed marks of lovemaking - the place where she hit her elbow on Henry’s nightstand, the base of her throat where he’d kissed too enthusiastically, the places on her thighs were she begged him to leave her mementos to last until they next had a day all to themselves. Did she walk strangely - stiffly, sorely - or did she strut too much? Did love just pour out of her skin, impossible to stop and impossible to deny? She didn’t want to stop it. She didn’t want to deny it. She wanted the whole village, the whole _town_ , to know that she loved Henry Edgeware and she wanted everyone to know that he was happily, happily taken. He seemed to want others to know that too, as his arm wrapped around Antigone’s waist and he squeezed her every so often. He even kissed her at Piffling Vale’s only crosswalk. Maybe they’d get more crosswalks for him to kiss her at when the funds for their public works quadrupled. 

They came to Funn Funerals to hear immediate bickering from the kitchen.

“Don’t go get the telephone,” Chapman said. “Antigone is a grown woman-”

“She hasn’t been home since yesterday morning,” said Rudyard. “That seems like the perfect reason to file a missing person’s report-”

“She’s with Henry,” said Chapman. “If you’re going to call someone, call him.”

“No one was answering at the hospital,” said Rudyard. He paused. “Well. Miss Scruple answered at St. Spratt’s. But the point remains that no one knows where Doctor Edgeware is, either-”

“Did you try his house?” Chapman asked. 

Rudyard laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous. Doctor Edgeware is never home…”

“Oy, morons,” Georgie said, “maybe we should let the two lovebirds sleep in a little longer before we call _anyone_. They’re both adults, probably doin’ adult things with one another.”

“Don’t be crass Georgie,” Rudyard snapped. “It’s just unusual for Antigone to be gone so long-”

“What about French cinema night?” Georgie asked. 

Rudyard sighed.

“That’s on _Thursday_ nights!”

Antigone made a sound that was meant to be an “a-ha” but that only served to startle everyone in the room. They all looked at her.

“I knew you knew when my cinema night was!” Antigone said. “Now you have no excuse to forget: I have witnesses.”

“Rookie mistake, sir,” Georgie said, getting up to pour herself another cup of tea. “She’s right.”

Chapman badly concealed a laugh.

“Where have you been?” Rudyard asked, looking at Antigone and Henry angrily. “Both of you?”

“That’s none of your-” Antigone started.

“We were at my house,” Henry said. “Antigone is welcome there any time."

Antigone reached into her pocket to check for her key. It was cool in her warm palm. 

"And I don't need your permission," she told Rudyard. "If I want to spend the night with my boyfriend, it's none of your business."

"Are you going to make being late to work a habit?" Rudyard asked. "Because if he's a distraction-"

"If he's a distraction, he's a welcome one," Antigone told her brother. "Is _Chapman_ going to distract you?"

Chapman held his hands up in surrender.

"I'm on _your_ side!" he said. "Rudyard, let them be."

"Yeah," Georgie said. "Just be glad they took it to his place instead of the mortuary."

"I don't think I like the two of you getting along," Rudyard said, eyeing his assistant and boyfriend with pursed lips.

"Oh, Eric's on thin ice with me, sir," Georgie said. "He's _always_ on thin ice with me."

"Don't start, Georgie," said Chapman. "As long as we agree that we want Rudyard and Antigone happy…"

Georgie raised her teacup.

"Cheers," she agreed. "I'm still watchin' you."

If you had told Antigone that such a domestic scene might play out in her kitchen within her lifetime, she might not have believed you a year ago. Now, she wondered how it was that it had taken this long for it to happen. She poured herself and Henry a cup of tea each. 

“Is now a good time to ask him?” Henry said, eyeing Rudyard who had begun making a checklist for the day while Chapman held his free hand. Every now and then, Rudyard looked up and gave Chapman a look that Antigone couldn’t read, but that Chapman seemed to understand with perfect clarity. “He doesn’t seem too happy.”

“He’s never too happy,” Antigone said. “We might as well ask him now and get it over with.”

“Ask me what?” Rudyard looked away from Chapman and his list. 

“Henry and I want to take a vacation once the NHS doctors arrive,” Antigone said. 

“No.”

“That’s not what we’re asking about,” Antigone said. “We don’t need your blessing to take a holiday.”

“We just need you to babysit,” Henry said.

“What!?”

The room fell silent as everyone looked at Henry and Antigone in utter bafflement. Henry realized only a second or two too late what everyone must have thought and he sighed.

“My parrot,” he amended. “Esther. We need you to babysit her, Rudyard. Antigone swears you have a talent with animals.”

The tension in the room eased. Rudyard looked down into his pocket at Madeline and talked it over with her.

“I didn’t know you two were friends!” he said to his mouse companion. Madeline squeaked some more. “Fair enough. Yes, all right, I can check in on Esther while you’re away, but that leaves one problem…”

“Here it comes,” Georgie muttered, pushing herself up onto the counter. Antigone and Henry exchanged worried glances. 

“Antigone is our only mortician,” Rudyard said. “If she goes on holiday, Funn Funerals will have to close for however long she’s gone and I don’t think we could sustain that financial loss-”

Chapman cleared his throat.

“Considering the circumstances,” he said, “I would be happy to help out with embalmings around here for a week. Henry and Antigone deserve a vacation; they’re two of the hardest working people on this island.”

“Are you offering because of Antigone and Doctor Edgeware, then?” Rudyard asked.

Chapman smiled the sort of smile reserved for inside jokes. Rudyard, to Antigone’s surprise, smiled back.

“Of course I’m doing it for Antigone and Henry,” Chapman said. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for the two of them.”

“Chapman…” Antigone said. 

“Don’t bother,” said Georgie. “It’s not really about you and Henry. Look at them.”

“Good God, do I make that face when I look at Henry?” Antigone asked, horror seeping into her voice.

“It looks better on you,” said Henry, squeezing her hand reassuringly. “If that’s all settled then, you and I had better start planning for a trip to France in a month…”

“A whole week alone, away from this bloody island…”

The bell above the door to the funeral home rang. 

“Mr. Funn! There’s no one over at Chapman’s,” said Agatha Doyle. The constable-turned-confectioner-turned-constable-again looked at Rudyard with wide, panicked eyes. “I have had half a dozen calls filing missing person reports for him and people are saying you were the last one to see him alive - again.” 

“Right here, Miss Doyle,” Chapman said, standing from the kitchen table. “I suppose I better go back across the square.”

“I suppose you had better, indeed,” Agatha said. “Now, if only someone could find Doctor Edgeware so easily, no one has seen him all morning, either-”

“Hello,” said Henry. 

Agatha startled. She looked at Doctor Edgeware as if she didn’t recognize him for a long time. Then, when familiarity bloomed in her brain, her eyes went wide behind her spectacles. 

“My goodness,” she said. “I almost didn’t recognize you. Sorry about that, m’lad. Something’s different about you. You look remarkably well-rested, ten years younger at least. Suspicious, one could say…”

“A full night’s rest makes all the difference,” he said neutrally, though he caught Antigone’s eye and smiled. “I suppose I should get back across the square, too. Will I see you tonight?”

“Only if you don’t make her late for work tomorrow morning,” said Rudyard.

Antigone ignored her brother and lifted up to kiss Henry on the mouth.

“Yes,” she whispered. “Absolutely, yes.”

Henry and Chapman made their way across the square to the ballooning queue of customers and patients awaiting them. Rudyard and Antigone watched them leave, a pair of fond smiles on their faces.

“My,” Agatha Doyle said, looking at Georgie, “ _something_ certainly has changed around here.”

“Suspicious, one could say?” Georgie asked, swinging her feet and smiling.

Agatha smiled at her and looked at Rudyard and Antigone, who for the first time that morning and, perhaps in their lives, were not arguing, but at peace. 

“No, I don’t think so,” said Agatha. “I think, if we’d all been paying more attention to the Funns, we would have thought this a perfectly natural conclusion for them all.” 


	17. Finale: An Even Better Beginning

As Chapman promised, NHS sent doctors by the month’s end. Though Mayor Desmond credited the expediency of NHS’ response to Eric’s telephone call, Henry and the Funns knew the truth: for every one-thousand people in the United Kingdom, there were 2.8 doctors. It didn’t take a mathematical genius to quietly figure out that for the last three years, Henry Edgeware had been doing nearly thirty times the amount of work any human being ought to have been doing. NHS had sent Mayor Desmond a letter, declaring Piffling Vale to be in a state of medical emergency and urging him to let his new chief of staff take as long a vacation as he wanted before assuming his duties overseeing the twenty-seven new doctors who joined him in Piffling Vale. Within the week, Henry and Antigone absconded to France. 

“What are you going to do,” Antigone asked one night as they lay awake in a fancy Parisian hotel while a gentle rain batted against the windows, “with all your extra free time?”

“A better question,” Henry said, rolling on top of her and grinning, “is what are  _ you _ going to do with a lover who has the stamina of thirty men?”

Antigone’s stammering was silenced as she arched up to kiss him and rolled him back onto the mattress for the first of several nights of intense lovemaking. Their days were spent touring the sights they were supposed to see and finding that the Louvre and Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame were only made interesting by the other’s commentary and that the Catacombs were infinitely more fun when one of you had nearly supernatural night vision. They got the most enjoyment from sitting in cafes and watching the fast pace of city life whir past them.

“Let’s hope the mayor never wants to become a city,” Henry said, sipping coffee for pleasure for the first time in three years. He’d forgotten that he used to enjoy the taste. “I don’t think thirty doctors will be enough if he gets his heart set on that.”

Antigone reached across the table and took Henry’s hand in hers. 

“We’ll tell him Paris was awful,” she said. “That all cities are and that the best thing in the world is to be a town.”

“I’ll rope Eric into that campaign,” Henry said. “If Mayor Desmond will listen to anyone, it’s him.”

“Mm.” Antigone sipped her decaf coffee, which had almost given the waiter a heart attack when she’d asked for it. “How do you think he and Rudyard are getting along with two funeral homes and a parrot to look after?”

“If I could manage two hospitals and a parrot on my own, those two can do it together,” Henry said.

Antigone gave him a skeptical look.

“They have Georgie,” he amended. “They’ll be fine.”

After five days in the city, they lingered in a village - an actual village - in the south, where lavender fields spread for miles under the Meditteranean sun. It had one church with several priests to its name and Antigone wondered when the bishop might send more clergymen to help Reverend Wavering and what other changes might be made to Piffling Vale in their trip to the continent. This little French village with some ridiculous name was paradise. She and Henry read different books in the same room with quiet contentment, only letting go of each other’s hands to turn the page. He slept in late and she cursed the too-bright sun every morning. They took moonlit walks through fields that smelled like peace and sleep and once when they were sure no one was around, they’d indulged in one of Antigone’s many fantasies and made love under the stars, only to discover that maybe even prescription allergy pills were no match for Antigone’s allergy to lavender. Between sneezing fits, they retreated to the cottage they were renting out. Steadily, Antigone regained her ability to breathe. Henry coached her through some breathing exercises until she could breathe well enough to scowl at him. He knew where the line was. Eventually, they laid back down in the unfamiliar bed together, loosely cuddling under linen sheets. They weren’t the silk that Antigone fantasized about, but they were cool against her skin and Henry was warm. She smiled into his chest.

“I’m sorry about my allergies,” she said. “It was so romantic until I started sneezing. In my head, it was… In my head, I was sexier.”

“I don’t think that’s possible,” Henry said. Antigone scowled at him and began to protest. He held up a hand. “I can’t think of anything sexier than a woman who goes for what she wants.”

“Even if she’s risking anaphylaxis?” Antigone asked.

“So maybe we went a little too far tonight,” said Henry gently. “How are you feeling?”

“Better,” Antigone said, snuggling in closer. “I feel better than better.”

“Glad to hear it. Antigone…” He rolled away from her and reached into the table drawer on his side of the bed. “I had thought about doing this our last night in Paris or maybe when we got back to Piffling…”

Antigone’s heart thudded in her ears as she watched Henry roll back toward her, clutching something to his chest. 

“You are - and always have been - the most amazing woman I’ve known,” Henry said. “I should have asked you out when we were still young, but I had the foolish ambition of never seeing Piffling Vale again. If I had been smarter then, I would have asked you out and come back to Piffling only to rescue you from it when you finished school. I have lived with that regret for nearly twenty years.”

“Henry, there’s nothing to regret,” Antigone said. “We have each other now.”

“I know and for the first time in my life, I’m imagining a real future on Piffling, but there’s no future for me there - or here or anywhere - if you’re not in it. I knew I loved you when you first met Esther, when you were willing to believe me, even as my truth sounded like madness. I knew I wanted to marry you the night of the census, when you were covered in blood and scowling at me and begging me to give Mrs. Weatherford a c-section. I knew then that you weren’t just the woman of my dreams, but someone so real and so devoted and so wonderfully stubborn that even arguing with you felt as natural as breathing. You’re not only beautiful but brilliant and brave and passionate and-”

“Yes?”

“And I’m telling you in Austen’s words:  _ You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope _ . And I am asking you, Antigone, to be my wife. Will you marry me?”

The stream of words that rushed from Antigone’s lips were an undeniable “yes” as she scarcely looked at the ring and kissed Henry. She drew a shaky breath and steadied herself.

“I’ve wanted to marry you - really wanted to marry you - since the morning you made me toast,” she confessed with a small laugh. “Absolutely, yes, I will marry you.”

At last, she looked at the ring as Henry slid it onto her finger. It fit perfectly around the calluses of her hand and the diamond was offset by two stones that looked black until they caught the light and a sparkle of color flashed across them like wildfire. She admired it for a moment and then, biting her lip, Antigone looked at Henry.

“We have wasted so much time not being together,” Henry murmured. Then, he shook his head. “ _ I _ have wasted so much time not asking you to be mine.”

“Let’s not waste any more,” Antigone said. “Let’s get married as soon as we make port in Piffling. I can’t imagine marrying you anywhere else. France has been lovely, this whole vacation has been everything I could have dreamed…”

“But it isn’t home,” Henry agreed. “It will be nice to see you standing at the altar of the church for something besides a funeral.”

“It will be even nicer to see you waiting for me there.”

When they boarded the ferry to return to the island - whether it was a village or a town - for the first time for both of them, there was a real future waiting for them at home, and that, they decided, made all the difference. 


End file.
